Preparatory Phases

The Disposition Days









        The first six chapters of this manual represent one way of preparing people for the Exercises journey according to notation [19].(1) If a prayer guide were to follow closely the instructions in these chapters, this preparatory phase should be completed within one and a half months. However, as you will discover, these pages illustrate a flexible approach rather than a rigid formula. The material suggested could represent a year's preparation rather than that of a month and a half. They are intended to be like the bellows of an accordion which can be expanded or contracted according to the feel and need of the music being played. More of the theory behind these six chapters will be found in the Chapters 21, 30, 31: "To You ... From Ignatius," "Different Perspectives In Understanding And Using The Exercises," "The Early Stages In Ongoing Spiritual Direction." 
 

Chapter One

The First Interview
Introducing Prayer Unit 1

       During this and the next few interviews, one of your major tasks is to establish rapport with your directee. This may take even longer than the first two or three interviews, but the process will be facilitated by non-judgemental listening and respect. In this first interview, be careful not to overwhelm your directee with too many instructions. Remember how you felt at the beginning of your own Exercises journey -- your fears, anxieties, apprehensions, hopes, and misunderstandings. In addition to a warm, unhurried atmosphere, you want to establish a context of faith. You are a person of faith; the person you are directing is a person of faith. The essential work is the work of Jesus' Spirit who is present with you during this interview and is working through you. Hence at some point during this interview, you may want to pray with your directee for the Spirit's gift of wisdom.

        Start the interview by introducing yourself and then ask your directee for his name. Share some interesting aspect of your life, and then ask you directee a few questions about his life -- simple questions, such as: "Oh, you come from Hamilton. What part do you come from? ... How old is your son?" Don't forget to exchange names and phone numbers in writing. The atmosphere is one of two equals or two friends "just talking."

       After these initial attempts to establish a working relationship, allow enough time for your directee to express his fears and hopes. You might introduce this with such questions as: "Why did you decide to make the Spiritual Exercises? ... What do you hope for? ... When I went through the Spiritual Exercises, I found the beginnings very fearful. I was apprehensive for quite a while. How do you feel about beginning this journey?" As the conversation continues, listen actively; that is, listen by feeding back and checking out what you hear. Feed back not only the words that you hear but also the feelings that are being expressed. Through such active listening, you allow your directee to express himself more adequately. For example:

Directee: I don't really know why I'm here (a bit fidgety and looking away from you). I had the idea of signing up a long time ago ... but ... ah ... I don't know.... At least I didn't know.... There's so much to do.... Everything seems to be coming at me... (pause).
Prayer Guide: Everything seemed to be tugging at you ... clamouring for your involvement?
Directee: Uha.... Yes, every time I seemed to turn around in the past few months, people were asking me to do something.... I didn't know whether I could do it.
Prayer Guide: You put off your commitment to come for a long time because you experienced so many confusing demands.... You seemed to have a sense of fear that perhaps you would be taking on too much?
        Then begin to investigate how your directee uses scripture in prayer -- whether he has had much experience in praying with scripture, and what that experience has been: "Have you had much experience in praying with scripture? ... What have you found helpful? ... What struggles or difficulties did you have in praying with scripture?" Simply listen with those listening skills that you have developed; don't teach at this point. Rather, as you listen, highlight the positive aspects in what you notice. Do not comment or try to change the negative aspects. Sometimes at this initial stage, it may be helpful to share some of your own struggles with scriptural prayer but only if this helps to achieve rapport.

        Your interviews are not sharing sessions despite the sharing quality of the first few interviews when you are establishing rapport. As prayer guide, be ready to disclose anything about yourself that will help your directee to understand himself better, but do so only when, and if, it will help rather than distract, and then, only in a manner that keeps the focus on the directee's experience. Sharing may confuse what is being expressed. The danger in sharing is that you will hear and interpret your directee's comments according to your own experience rather than his. Too much sharing leads to the projection of your own issues upon your directee rather than allowing your directee to arrive at some understanding of his own unique experience that may sound similar to yours, but may, in fact, signify something totally different.

        After exploring your directee's familiarity with scriptural prayer to help you decide about an appropriate approach for now, discuss the structure of the time commitment during the Exercises: "When you heard about the Exercises journey, you probably heard that an hour of prayer exercises each day is a required minimum. How did that sound to you?" Again let your directee express any apprehensions. Discuss the best time of day that could be chosen for each spiritual exercise. Suggest that some experimentation might have to be done with respect to:

a) Place of prayer,
b) Time of prayer,
c) Length of prayer,
d) What items might have to be sacrificed for the duration of the Exercises
    journey; for example, a favourite television series, etc.
        For the directee who is overly apprehensive about the time commitment, you could suggest, at this stage, at least a half hour each day with the encouragement to increase the time as he goes along.

        Ideally, throughout the Exercises according to the notation-[19] method in this manual, a directee is to do an hour and a half of spiritual exercises each day except on the day of the interview. The structure of the day should look like this:

5  minutes preparation for prayer,
60 minutes prayer exercise,
10 minutes written Review of the experience of the prayer period,
15 minutes Awareness Examen at the end of the day.
However, there will be some directees who could commit themselves to an hour but not to an hour and a half. For these, the breakdown would look like this:
5   minutes preparation for the prayer exercise,
40 minutes prayer exercise,
7   minutes written Review immediately after the prayer exercise,
8   minutes Awareness Examen at the end of the day.
In an exceptional situation where a directee cannot really commit himself to an hour, he could gain some profit from this seven-month prayer experience with a structure that looks like this:
30 minutes preparation and prayer exercise,
5   minutes written Review,
5   minutes Awareness Examen at the end of the day.
In each of these situations, the time commitment is one of the essentials. Some agreement on this should be reached together. If you do not think that such an agreement can be reached in this first interview, then make sure that it is reached by the third or fourth interview.

        Let me make a few remarks on the importance of structure. First of all, the Exercises journey is a structured prayer experience, and that is part of its essence and effectiveness. This does not necessarily mean that one needs such a definite structure of prayer in the ongoing situation of life. Theoretically, a person could pray for twenty minutes one day, five minutes another day, an hour on another day, and still be given significant guidance in his prayer experience. Such a person could receive the graces of the Exercises with such a non-structured approach. In practice, however, a non-structured approach is very difficult to direct because a prayer guide has nothing against which to measure or ascertain what is going on in a directee's prayer. The key reason for the insistence on certain structures in guiding a directee through the Exercises is that structure gives you an important way to judge what is going on in the subjective experience of your directee. The outside structure gives a touchstone for discerning. It evaluates subjectivity. If a prayer guide knows what is being prayed upon, what the time commitment is, and what Grace is being sought, then she has a way of judging what is happening in the directee's subjective experience.

        Structure is also important for the directee. Ignatius is very clear on this point in the Exercises text: "The director of the Exercises has to warn him carefully to make sure that his soul remains content in the consciousness of having been a full hour in the exercise, and rather more than less. For the enemy is not a little used to try and make one cut short the hour of such contemplation, meditation or prayer" [12]. Often, time is the only thing we have to share with God; time is the sign of our cooperation with God. If we seem to be going through a drier period and "nothing" seems to be happening, our faithfulness to a definite prayer time is a sign of our faithfulness to God.

        On a more practical level, time for prayer is like other rhythms in human living. We live in units of timed activity -- time for work, play, eating, sleeping, etc. In a life that is occupied by many different activities, the time for spiritual exercises can often get lost if there is not a commitment. When there is a firm commitment to prayer, we discover how prayer seeps into all the other activities of the day.

        After discussing the prayer structure of the day with your directee, give him the prayer material for Prayer Unit 1. Explain how the Prayer Texts a) - f) are for the prayer exercise each day. The Additional Readings are simply there if he wishes added material for extra spiritual reading beyond the structure to which he has committed himself. They are a help to create an atmosphere or ambience for the day. For you the prayer guide, these extra readings could give you some alternatives in guiding: a) to extend the theme beyond a week if necessary; b) to replace the suggested prayer text if you deem it more fitting for the directee.(2)

        Explain the theme and the Grace that is being sought. Suggest that your directee keep asking for that particular Grace throughout each spiritual exercise. This explanation can be rather short and more suggestive:

"You might really ask God to show you how much God cares for you.... Allow yourself to notice how close God is to you.... Let yourself experience God's closeness.... If you don't experience this, or if you are frustrated, then tell God. Express how you really feel about it all."
At this point, you can begin to make a few suggestions on how to listen in prayer. Your suggestions will be made according to the needs that you have discovered in the earlier part of this interview. For example, if your directee struck you as being work-oriented, then you might say something like this:
"And when you pray, let yourself relax. Let God be for you. Let God show you rather than you trying to dig it out for yourself."
Or if he struck you as being confused or not focused, you might suggest this:
"And when you pray, simply dwell on one line. Let it stay with you -- something like sucking on a candy rather than gobbling it up, or like soaking in a bath rather than jumping in and out of a shower."
At the end of the interview, you might make a short summary of what went on during the interview. Then indicate the time and place for the next one. You could end with:
"Next time, we'll be spending time discovering how God has been present in your own experiences of prayer. Don't worry too much about it. It may take a while before we feel at ease with each other and before you find it easy to express what is happening. Perhaps you could jot down a few notes after you pray to highlight or notice what went on. But do it after and not during the prayer time. This may help us in our next interview."
Summary
Specifically:

Chapter Two

Goal Of The Disposition Days
Listening To The Experience Of Prayer Unit 1

Introducing Prayer Unit 2

        Your context of listening is the Disposition Days which are a preparation for the Exercises journey. As you listen to and converse with your directee, you should be constantly aware of this question: "What help does my directee need to prepare for the Exercises journey?"

        To understand this general question more practically, let us look for a moment at the first day of the First Week of the Exercises text. On the supposition that Ignatius envisages that the month-long Exercises of notation [20] begin with the five exercises of the First Week on the very first day, we can make a case for the following theoretical assertions concerning a hypothetical directee who is "ready" or properly disposed for them. This person should have these abilities and characteristics:

        This is a tall order. About this very point, a spiritual guide and colleague once commented: "Such a person wouldn't have to make the Exercises journey!" She was implying that sometimes we give the Exercises in order to help a directee develop these very dispositions.

        Ideally, the qualities mentioned above would be encouraged through the prayer of the Disposition Days which could last anywhere from five weeks to a couple of years! What you hope to accomplish through the Disposition Days is that your directee will develop sufficient openness in prayer to benefit from the Exercises journey from the First Exercise of the First Week. Don't be overly discouraged if your directee does not have all the dispositions about which we theorize.

        As prayer guide, if you judge that your directee is not quite ready and you wish to extend these weeks, then do so.(3) However, here is checklist of items to help you think about this preparatory stage. The items are listed according to priority, the first being more desirable than the second, etc.(4) My suggestion is that you content yourself with the first five or six items if you perceive that your directee has a long way to go to be properly disposed:

1)  Ability to pray using scripture for 45-60 minutes;
2)  Certain ability to relax in prayer;
3)  Some appreciation that God takes the initiative and that this is God's work;
4)  Ability to make the Review with sufficient detail to remember some
     of the things that have happened in his prayer;
5)  Experience of being a creature, both dependent and loved;
6)  Growing desire to be open to God's communication;
7)  Some understanding of what it means to be spiritually free,
     at least an intellectual grasp of this, and a desire for this;
8)  Ability to ask for a Grace and the knowledge that this is important;
9)  Ability to make the Awareness Examen;
10) Use of different prayer postures;
11) Sense of God's holiness;
12) Open attitude towards life -- life as mystery rather than problem;
13) Realistic acceptance of his gifts and weaknesses;
14) Awareness of the existence of hidden motives and urgings in his heart.
        This list is only partial, but it will serve as a kind of checklist for you to see how you can help your directee. Some items, such as 9), need to be explained; other items, such as 12), need to be encouraged so that your directee's interior processes move in that direction. Most items need both. As you probably remember from your own Exercises journey, some concepts could be grasped only after they were experienced even though they needed an explanation ahead of time. The Review, for example, only makes sense and is understood after the directee has had good experiences of its practice.

        Hopefully, by the end of these Disposition Days, your directee will have developed or deepened the Contemplative Attitude. This is an openness -- a listening heart, an ability to let go and let God, an ability to allow himself to react to God's influences rather than to control his prayer. A person has developed the Contemplative Attitude when one allows oneself to be surprised in prayer; that is, when God's word can reveal the secret emotions of one's heart. A person has the Contemplative Attitude when the mystery of God is allowed to touch one's own mystery, when one's real life is affected by God's word.

        There is always a need for balance! Here are some of the stereotypical ways that directees show that they do not have the Contemplative Attitude. First, there is the intellectualizer who finds lessons during his prayer. He controls what he prays over by turning his prayer into a kind of bible study. Often he is interested in concepts, ideals, the right thing, external law, right order, duty.

        Second, there is the person who cannot concentrate and focus. He seems to be forever circling the issue. Sometimes this is due to an unwillingness to face certain personal issues in his life, a refusal to notice his real feelings. Often he seems to misunderstand what you are saying and gets excited about the wrong things. He seems incapable of grasping the essence of things.

        Third, there is the "fantasizer" who exaggerates issues. The material he surfaces can often be highly emotional and even symbolic. At times he is so melodramatic in his expression of his prayer experiences that he seems to be out of touch with reality.

        With directees who manifest some of these characteristics, your approach ought to encourage balance. The intellectualizer needs to learn gradually how to pay attention to feelings. The person who cannot concentrate must gradually learn to pay attention to one thing rather than twenty-five different things. The fantasizer needs to attend more and more to the cognitive component of the material over which he is praying.

        No doubt, because the Exercises journey is a structured experience, one of your roles in this dispositional phase is to do some teaching -- Review, posture, Awareness Examen, etc. Nevertheless, encouraging your directee to notice his interior experiences is your key role(5) in preparing him for the Exercises journey. Noticing what is going on in his interior experience during prayer is the single most effective way of developing the Contemplative Attitude. How do you do this? By assisting your directee to articulate his personal interior experiences. This assistance is done both directly and indirectly.

        In the more direct approach, begin by asking non-threatening, somewhat external, questions. Then, gradually move to questions which call for more interior, somewhat feeling, responses. At first, questions such as these would be suitable:

        If your directee remains on a more superficial level, ask clarifying questions, but be content with the superficial character of his responses. Later, when he seems to be more at home with you and with what is happening in his prayer, facilitate his articulation of the deeper significance of his prayer experiences: "Let's talk more about your experience of that psalm. What struck you most? ... How did it make you feel?" In time you might even suggest some alternative feeling words to choose from: "Did it make you feel good? ... happy? ... sad? ... apathetic? ... hopeful? ... discouraged?"

        Seldom should a prayer guide ask, "Why?" Think back to any of your own experiences of trying to express something and of your listener asking you, "Why did you feel that way? ... Why did that strike you?" ... and other questions probing for reasons. What was your reaction when you were asked such questions? If your experiences are like most people's, you probably became detracted from what you were trying to express. Why-type questions are threatening. Human relations theory based on sound practice indicates that such probing questions are usually not helpful. They hinder rather than foster rapport and communication. This is especially true at this stage.(6)

        In general, as this disposition phase continues, you will be helping your directee to articulate and identify his feelings and thoughts about life that are surfacing through his prayer. As these feelings and heartfelt thoughts become more evident, encourage him to express them to God: "Did you talk to God about these feelings? ... Don't be afraid to express how you really feel when you are at prayer." Sometimes it helps to explain the Colloquy as being a two-way conversation with God: "Imagine Jesus sitting across from you. Tell him what is on your mind and what is in your heart. Then be silent and imagine Jesus responding to you. Together you enter into conversation."

        You help your directee to express more effectively life's deeper meanings that are surfacing by using indirect questions which feed back what you are hearing in an open-ended way:

PG:   How did the psalm make you feel?
D:     (longish pause) ... It got me a bit rattled.... It seems crazy to react
         that way but I did....
PG:    You were surprised that you got a bit upset....
D:       Yes, I was.... I really believe that God cares for me and so I
          couldn't understand why I was rattled. After all, I am the creature
          and God is the creator....
PG:     (commenting tentatively) ... You didn't expect such a rattling
           experience because you really believe how much God cares for you.
        You may have begun with some external direct questions which called for somewhat superficial responses. Now, however, little by little, you can move to a more indirect approach as your directee begins to unfold deeper responses. No doubt there will be some directees who respond on this deeper level almost immediately. Helping your directee notice what is going on in his interior experience facilitates the emergence of the Contemplative Attitude. It assists him in becoming more conscious of what is really present in his prayer experiences. This encourages him to make these inner reactions available to God.

        It will become important to encourage concreteness as your directee is articulating his experience. Generalizations can mean very many things. The statement, "I have found that I was really carrying the cross in the past week," can mean "I had an embarrassing fight with my son who confronted me on one of my weaknesses which I have been trying to hide," ... or it can mean "I was filled with distractions during my prayer and found it very difficult because these distractions concern things I do not feel comfortable about." Hence the prayer guide will call for, in various gentle and careful ways, the meaning behind these general expressions: "Excuse me, but you mentioned something about carrying the cross. I'm sorry but I can't get hold of what you mean...." or "Would you care to talk more about this difficult time you had?" or "Your week was filled with many struggles.... It was like carrying a cross?"

        When a person is unaware of deeper reactions being touched off in prayer, God seems distant or impersonal. It is as if one is hiding something from one's lover. When we hide something from someone we love, we feel more distant from that person. We do this to remain on safe territory. When a directee is unaware of his deeper reactions, he needs the help of the prayer guide to help him gently allow these reactions to surface. There is no significant growth during the Exercises journey unless God is allowed to influence one's real interior reactions that are presently needing to surface.

        Often the reason why a person is not capable of allowing God to influence his deeper interior reactions is connected to his false images of God. Even without knowing it, a person might be relating to God as tyrant, movie director, divine candy machine, grand designer, judge, false lover, or with combinations of these images. False images relate to God, to life, to others and to self. They influence how we listen to or avoid God's word. Basically the Disposition Days are intended to help correct these false images, or at least, to set the stage for their transformation so that a person becomes able to hear God's word. Like ourselves, our directees are not able to make contact easily with those false images touched off in prayer. If we recognize how long it has taken ourselves to correct our own false images, we will realize how long it will probably take our directees to deal with theirs.

        The concept of images can be a helpful instrument to reflect upon how one relates to life and to God. In many ways, the journey of life is made up of a transformation of images. The image one has of marriage or career at one point in one's life is not the same as the image one has later. Images are connected with a whole spectrum of historical and psychological events in the past which need to be healed or accepted or acknowledged. They are connected to teachings concerning self and God which have been ingested or appropriated over the years. Images are a coalescence of beliefs, cultural mores, self-images, thoughts, memories, imaginative bits of experiences.(7) Throughout, be attentive to how your directee is relating to God and to what images that might be operative in his life. Sometimes it is even helpful to raise this notion of images with your directee.

        How does one discover such images that are operative in one's life? By praying over the true images of God and by noticing how one reacts to them. After you help your directee notice how he is being affected in prayer, you can invite him to express his real feelings and memories that are being touched off. Gradually you can then suggest that he ask God to give further enlightenment on those images which are hindering a more personal relationship, and in time, to change them. The shift of images, with its consequent shifts in one's consciousness and relationships with others and the world, may take place much later after the Exercises journey is over.

        So much for some general comments that apply to the Disposition Days and to the whole Exercises journey. Now more specifically I deal with the second interview.

        After the normal time for getting settled and the bit of chit-chat, you may want to begin the session with a short prayer. This acts as a way of continuing the faith context and getting to the centre of things quickly; namely, what is happening in your directee's prayer over the past week. But this opening prayer is short. This is not a faith-sharing session and it is not a prayer session. Being too proper and careful about this prayer runs the risk of "pietizing" the atmosphere. If one makes the atmosphere of the interview too pious, an atmosphere is generated that may hinder rather than help the directee's openness. Certain expectations are set up: a certain rhetoric becomes more acceptable, and in that atmosphere, the directee may relate to you, and you may relate to the directee, in non-adult ways.

        Then you might begin with the question, "What has been happening in your prayer this week?" Often a directee at this point will not focus upon his prayer directly but will talk around it. This is healthy since it takes quite a while for a person to focus immediately on one's prayer experience. Remember how long it may have taken you! At this point what you need to listen for is:

a) Whether he is able to pray with scripture and has been faithful
    to the prayer time each day;
b) How he prays from scripture;
c) What may help to make his prayer more fruitful -- something on
    posture - or relaxation - or praying for a Grace - or dwelling on a
    point or verse of the scripture text.
        After this conversation in which there will be much listening and perhaps a little teaching, you can begin to focus more directly on the experience of the actual prayer times. If you think that it would help, you might suggest that your directee express what went on in only one of the more significant prayer exercises. Remember the purpose here is for him to learn how to articulate his interior experience. "Make haste slowly" as the maxim goes.

        Since your directee will be expressing what went on as he prayed over the scripture texts of Prayer Unit 1, try to note how he is relating to an image of God as near -- as nurturing, as mothering, as providing, as caring. If possible, you will begin to encourage the expression of his interior reactions and help him to notice them, too. Remember, in many instances, it may take several weeks before he articulates his reactions easily and before his deeper reactions begin to emerge.

        After listening to the way in which your directee relates to the scripture texts on God's nearness, you may need to spend some time just talking with each other. Last week you introduced yourselves a bit and now you may want to find out more about each other.

        Somewhere in this session, make sure you explain how to make the Review of prayer. Stress that the Review is not a blow-by-blow description:

        This is one of the most important spiritual exercises. At some point in the next few interviews you will need to remind your directee of its importance: "The key question to ask yourself for the Review is, `What happened in me during the prayer exercise?' This question does not invite you to put down what ideas you had. Rather it asks you how you felt about the thoughts that spontaneously occurred in you during the prayer exercise itself...." The Review is an instrument that helps your directee to notice what is happening in prayer, on his own without your facilitation. Practice in the making of the Review will, in time, empower your directee to discern his own spiritual movements.

        Towards the end of the interview session, give out Prayer Unit 2 on dependence on God and God's gift of God's self. As you give this material, focus your remarks according to what you have heard throughout this past interview.

Summary

Specifically: Generally:

Chapter Three

Continuation Of The Disposition Days
Listening To The Experience Of Prayer Unit 2
Introducing Prayer Unit 3
Dealing With Resistance

        The material in Prayer Unit 2 covers the theme of creaturehood. It combines two statements which the Disposition Days might deal with separately: 1) God creates me/us -- which contains the image of God as loving maker; 2) God gives God's self to me/us -- which contains the image of God who loves us as a lover [231]. The theme of creaturehood is picked up again in the Principle and Foundation in Prayer Unit 5.

        At this time, you might judge that your directee needs more time with Prayer Unit 2. If so, follow your judgement. One way of achieving this is by breaking up the creaturehood theme according to its different aspects:

        Hopefully, your directee will have experienced in some significant way one or other of these aspects. Perhaps it will be a sense of awe and fragility before his Creator; or a deep sense of reverence at the value of life; or a sense of being a part of a vast and beautiful enterprise of cosmic proportions; or a sense of being accepted and loved; or an amazement at how small we are and yet how we, along with the human family, are loved personally; or some experience of being a child of God. These Disposition Days are based on the basic Christian beliefs that are presumed throughout the Exercises.(8) As prayer guide, you hope that this belief structure behind the Exercises is being appropriated. What you are hoping for is not so much an intellectual grasp of, or assent to, these beliefs, but rather, a heart-felt experience. Some experience of being a loved child of God is very important before your directee faces his own sin and that of the world in the First Week. Such an experience creates safe ground on which to stand when being faced with the hard truths of evil and fosters an attitude of heart that allows him to be more open to the enlightening and forgiving love of God.

        Whatever the theory and hope, your directee may come to you without these experiences. Perhaps he is still struggling to establish rapport with you. Perhaps he is still learning to articulate his personal experience. In both situations, you will probably find it more appropriate to remain on the surface of things. This is all right. Don't rush. Don't lay expectations on your directee. Gently be with him at his growing edge. Simply listen for hints of some aspect of these themes as they surface. Only when they do, help your directee to notice them.

        Perhaps he will only be starting to relax in God's presence and to be aware of God's nearness (something you had hoped for last week!). Encourage whatever is emerging in his prayer even if it seems to be referring to an earlier prayer pattern. Help him to notice his own experience and to grow into a deeper awareness of his identity as a beloved child of God under whatever aspect or modality this is occurring.

        At times during the Exercises journey, your directee may begin to experience resentment at his limitations, anger at not being in control of life's whims. It is a feeling of being manipulated by an all-knowing God. Though this might be the logical place where such a reaction should occur so that a person might enter into the Exercises journey with a better image of God, often this occurs much later, sometimes during the First or the Second Week. If such resentment does occur here, encourage the expression of these feelings now, during the interview, and later, during the prayer exercises, particularly in the Colloquies. Encourage him to ask God for the enlightenment necessary to let God be God. At times, such resentment takes place in the more subtle ways discussed in the latter part of this chapter.

        After you have listened and mutually discerned and discussed what has been happening in your directee's prayer experience, you could give him the prayer material for Prayer Unit 3 with a suggestion or two explaining how to go about it and what to look for. Obviously your suggestions will flow from, and be focused by, what you have heard emerging. What you sense is needed at this point is more important than any proposed prayer pattern. Perhaps you might suggest that he return to some of the same material from Prayer Unit 2 for all or part of the next week.

        During this interview, it will be important to investigate the use of the Review which you introduced last week. You could ask your directee to read aloud one of the written Reviews from the past week. The Review is one of the skills that help a directee to reflect on his own experience of a prayer exercise and to notice, on his own, God's movements. Some directees find this written Review rather difficult to do. One directee wants to write down everything and so spends too much time on it; another can't think of what to put down; another wants to tie everything up in lessons and "nosegays" in order that he may benefit from reading it next year! The key difficulty one encounters with the written Review is that directees put down their conclusions of the prayer rather than capturing their interior reactions or spiritual movements. They record thoughts that flow after the prayer experience, rather than the experience itself.(9) What you should be attentive to are the interior reactions that flowed through your directee as he was doing the prayer exercise itself. The prayer guide listens primarily to what arose from a directee's heart during the prayer exercise.

        Hence from time to time, some teaching and checking out may be required to detect whether your directee is learning to be attentive to movements -- the more spontaneous thoughts and feelings that have been occurring during the prayer exercise. Sometimes it may be helpful, though admittedly artificial, to suggest that your directee use some guide questions in making the Review after each prayer exercise during the next few weeks. But even with such questions as these, your directee may take a long time before he grows in this skill:

a) What scripture text did I use for prayer?
b) Did I give the whole time to the prayer exercise?
c) Where was I comfortable or uncomfortable during this period of prayer?
d) What feelings and thoughts occurred to me during the period of prayer?
e) Is there something from this period of prayer to which I should return in
    my next period of prayer?
f) For what gift was I asking God? Did I receive it? How?
A good Review will always have three aspects to which a directee should be attentive:         After discussing the nature of the Review, and if appropriate, give further explanations on Repetition, Praying for a Grace, and/or the Colloquy. At this point you do not want to give too many explanations.

Repetition, Asking For A Grace, Colloquy

        Repetition is one of the most important dynamics of the Exercises journey. Unfortunately many prayer guides do not appreciate this sufficiently. Often they interpret Repetition as merely going over the same material again in order to grasp better what has gone on before as one would do in studying for an exam or in preparation for a lecture. However, Repetition is the going back to a place where there has been some movement in prayer [62] -- moments of Consolation (a sense of being lifted up, a sense of God's presence, an unexpected understanding or meaning, etc.); moments of Desolation (struggle, uncomfortableness, a sense of God's absence, etc.); or moments of spiritual appreciation (a sense of the beginning or the deepening of some understanding which touches the heart).

        Repetition is often a difficult concept to communicate to a directee. However, once a directee, on his own, makes use of Repetitions and desires to return to some movement that has taken place, you know that he has entered into the dynamic of the Exercises. Later, when he recognizes that some movement has not yet been completed or when he expresses the judgement that perhaps he should return to some feeling or emerging thought, then you know that he is actually beginning to discern spirits.

        If you introduced the notion of Repetition as given in Prayer Unit 2, begin to discuss with your directee its use and then ask, "When you used the material that was suggested last week in d), e) and f), what governed your choices?" In later interviews, you can encourage the use of Repetition by asking such questions as: "Was there some point in the past week that you sense you should be returning to? ... Why do you say this?" You might explain it in this way: "In your Review you might be attentive to some movement that invites you to go back. Sometimes this is indicated by an uneasiness or by a feeling of God's presence that calls you to go back and stay a little longer. Through Repetition you are respecting the Spirit's movements within you. Go back and do not be afraid to incorporate in succeeding exercises any points of movement from previous prayer exercises." It may be several weeks before your directee is able to appreciate the notion of Repetition; simply raise the issue here and be prepared to continue to heighten your directee's consciousness concerning its use and importance as you accompany him on the journey.

        Asking for a Grace is not something that we do at the beginning of each exercise only. Rather we continue to ask for a Grace all through the exercise and in the Colloquies. To ask for a Grace is first of all to acknowledge that growth in prayer is God's gift and not our work. It puts us in the position of a receiver rather than that of a doer. It gives us a focus in the prayer. Ignatius continually suggests its use; the directee is instructed to include it in every prayer exercise. When we ask for a Grace, we leave that part of our being open to receive it; we make a certain area of our life available to God's action. As a directee prays for the suggested Grace, he finds that the general Grace becomes more particular according to his needs. For example, at the beginning of the week, a directee may be praying for the awareness of how his Creator relates to him personally. Towards the middle of the week, he begins to pay attention to some fears that are arising. He discovers that he is afraid of anyone relating personally to him. He finds it hard to trust intimacy for some specific reason. Accordingly, he begins to pray for the trust he needs. It is often helpful to ask your directee during the interview, almost at any time during the Exercises journey, "What do you sense to be your particular need now?" What you are doing is asking your directee to particularize the Grace that is being sought. You can also suggest, "If you don't seem to be receiving the Grace you are seeking, talk it over with Jesus in your Colloquies."

        In the model that Ignatius outlines, the Colloquy is placed just before the close of a prayer exercise. The directee should make it there if he has not done so earlier. However, the Colloquy is a conversational technique intended for any moment during the prayer exercise. It is made when one feels moved to make it. At times one enters into such a Colloquy when one prays for the Grace. It is made as a friend with a friend [54]; during it, one pours out one's thoughts to God [53]; during it, one talks over what is happening in one's experience, be it temptations, Desolations, Consolations, or desires. One talks over what one needs -- seeking advice, inquiring how one could be more open, asking for enlightenment as to some particular issue [199]. Like any conversation, it is a dialogue. Monologues are not conversations; nor are they Colloquies. One should not interpret the Colloquy as a vocal prayer. The Colloquy, at this stage, is an instrument of discovery. Later on it will become an instrument of freedom.(10) When one talks out one's experiences and pours out one's thoughts, there is a release of the less-than-conscious areas of one's heart. Revelation and discovery come both from within oneself and from the grace of God's enlightenment. Often one begins the Colloquy in one fashion, then forgets oneself in the conversation and discovers oneself saying things and expressing deeper and unexpected desires. In the development of these desire and in their indication of growing Spiritual Freedom, one recognizes the impulse of the Spirit.

        As indicated in the last chapter, the Colloquy is a two-way conversation. Often a directee has no trouble talking to Jesus or God as father or God as mother but often fails to talk with them. The Colloquy is a conversation and conversation is dialogical. Often it will help the directee to enter this dialogue by encouraging him to use his imagination.

Desolation And Resistance

        The rest of this chapter deals with a topic that may arise at this stage but may also come up at later stages on the Exercises journey. It is the topic of `resistance.'(11) Let us suppose that your directee has been praying very well and has been articulating his experiences with ease. Now he comes to you and says that he has had a terrible week: "I wasn't able to concentrate at all. Last week the prayer periods seemed to go so well but this week has been so different!" How do you explore this experience and respond after using the active listening phase of the interview?

        First of all, you should always check the externals of prayer. Has he been putting in the full time of prayer? Has he prepared the matter for his prayer [6]? Is anything happening in his day-to-day living that presents a worry or a concern? If so, has he brought these experiences to the prayer or has he tried to isolate his prayer from his real life? Has he continued to be generous? Is there something physiological, such as a fatiguing experience? If some possible reason for the struggle emerges out of these external questions, then treat the issue on this level. Don't look for something more subtle if you can use something that is more obvious. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, call it a duck!

        Let us suppose, however, that nothing on this external level accounts for the struggle of the past week. Then you might presume that he is distancing himself from God in some way. Has the material for prayer surfaced some image of God that does not harmonize with that expressed in scripture? Is your directee experiencing some anger, resentment, fear, or sadness that has been touched off? Sometimes, distractions and the inability to settle down in prayer are signs of emerging reactions. Is your directee experiencing some memory that needs to be dealt with? Is your directee experiencing some resentment about life? Is there something about being creature and dependent that he does not like?

        You can keep such questions at the back of your mind to help you listen, but remember none of these possibilities may fit at all. So don't judge. Your role is to listen and to help your directee notice what is going on as you are listening. The danger here may be that you will jump to some interpretation which will interfere with your directee's noticing. There are three approaches that could be used.

        The first approach is to continue with active listening. In this approach, you respond to his comment about the struggle of the past week by saying something like this: "You must have really been struggling in the past weeks.... I wonder whether it may be difficult for you to express.... Let's spend a bit of time on the past week.... Sometimes our more profound experiences take place when we pay attention to the frustrations and seeming failures.... Let's take your prayer exercises of the past two days, and even if it seems useless, try to express the thoughts and feelings you had during them...." Engage in listening and tentatively feeding back what is being expressed or hinted at.(12) For example, in listening to him, you may have noted some phrase or word indicating edginess. And so, with a more direct question or two, you might focus on the feeling part of the words: "You mention being tense or edgy.... What does it feel like to be edgy? ..."

        Being distracted, dryness in prayer, or a sense of God's absence can be a sign of emotional distancing in prayer. Through the same questions that were suggested in the last chapter, focus on what happened, not on why it happened. You will cover less ground than before. Simply underscore the emotional reactions that are being expressed and reflect these back as accurately as possible. Don't change what is being expressed with interpretations. If you suspect that this experience is masking some fear, anger, or unwanted negative feeling, then realize that careful exploration may take a long time before your directee expresses the unwanted negative feeling to you or even recognizes it for himself. It will be some time also before he is able to express it to God. Your role is to encourage the feelings that are being hidden by the confusion and frustration. Realize, too, that for the next week or so, affective prayer may not be possible. Therefore as suggested in notation [319], you might encourage him to use a more actively reflective method of prayer. When affective presence is almost impossible, a more intellectual approach may be necessary during the prayer exercise.

        The second approach begins with the gentleness and kind encouragement suggested in notation [7]. If you do not think that it is too early in the Exercises journey, you might refer to the First Set of Guidelines for Discerning Spirits and show them to your directee. Together, read the pertinent guidelines -- [315], [317], [319]-[321] -- during the interview. Discuss them a bit to discover whether any of these descriptions seem to fit his experience. Then discuss with him how to go about his prayer next week. Ask whether he senses that he should repeat some of the same material of the past week. Often at this early stage, it may not be appropriate to use these guidelines explicitly since there are so many other things that your directee is learning. However, if your directee is comfortable enough with scriptural prayer and articulation of his prayer experiences, he might benefit by being exposed to them. In any event, this approach can be used later on when such a struggling experience of Desolation will likely occur. Note that, in this approach of using the Guidelines explicitly, often the underlying feelings do not immediately get identified and the real issue(s) will likely surface later during the prayer exercises themselves as your directee follows Ignatius' suggestions contained in these Guidelines.

        The third approach enlists the cooperation of your directee in trying to discover the reason behind the experience. You could do so by saying something like this:

"You know, Martin, the struggle that you describe, though it seems very frustrating to you, may, in fact, be the Spirit trying to communicate with you in a special way.... Sometimes when God's Spirit is attempting to enlighten us, we react with fear or confusion or sadness ... just as you describe. Let's try together to discover what may be taking place. Was there something in the material of the past week that you didn't like? Let's look at each passage together.... The first one was on Moses taking off his shoes...."
Often this third approach will not bear fruit immediately because your directee will not understand you. He will not see how confusion and frustration might mask other feelings until he has received the enlightenment after the experience. However, you are laying the groundwork for his own efforts in seeking from God the grace of enlightenment as to what is the meaning of his experience.

        The first approach is completely indirect. The second approach makes direct use of the Guidelines for Discerning Spirits. The third approach enlists your directee's conscious help on the path of discovery. At this stage, I would likely use the first approach while leaving the others for a later time when your directee has gained a greater facility in expressing his deeper reactions.

Summary

Specifically: Generally:

Chapter Four

Continuation Of The Disposition Days
Listening To Prayer Unit 3
Additions
Introducing Prayer Unit 4

        The material of Prayer Unit 3 unfolds another aspect of our creaturehood and God's desire to share with us; namely, God's eagerness to forgive us personally and communally through Jesus our personal saviour. It combines two theological truths which, if you judge suitable, you could propose separately for two different prayer units: 1) God desires to forgive us personally, and 2) Jesus desires to be our personal saviour.

        These themes convey images of God as full of mercy and compassion. "If God is on our side, who can be against us!" (Rom 8:31) The following facets of God's love are implied:

        Also implied is the truth that all history is salvific -- our communal history in general, along with our own personal history. This means that God is present in the events of life, labouring and working for us so that God might share with us God's inner life and love [235], [231].

        When you begin this interview, you are hoping that a further dimension of God's love has been experienced in some significant way. Perhaps it will be a deepening of an aspect of God's love that has been emerging in the past interview. Perhaps it will be more related to the present theme: a sense of being loved even though one is a sinner; or a sense of God's kindness, a realization that God is not out to get one; or a greater comfort with God against whom one has sinned; or a deeper belief in God's mercy.

        As you listen to your directee and help him notice his own experiences or prayer, try to note how he is relating to God or Jesus as constantly desiring to forgive. What lines of scripture seem to be striking him? How is he affected by these lines -- comfortable? uncomfortable? turned in on himself? appreciative of a truth outside himself? Is he relating more personally than he was, or is he beginning to be more impersonal by theorizing or learning lessons? If the latter, what images of God might be influencing his responses?

        The stress of Prayer Unit 3 is God's desire to forgive, not the directee's need for forgiveness. Hopefully, there will be more attention to God than to himself. However, when this theme is introduced, it often happens that a directee seems to move into a focus on his own sinfulness. If this happens and if your directee begins to be discouraged, remember how notation [7] instructs you to encourage your directee and to strengthen him for the future by "laying bare the wiles of the enemy of our human nature." As mentioned in the last chapter, perhaps this is too early to use the Guidelines for Discerning Spirits more explicitly. It is important here not to focus too much on this experience of being turned in on himself. A brief exploration here may be helpful to connect empathically with your directee's experience in order to discover how you can encourage him to stay on track with the work of this preparatory phase. If your directee feels that, in some significant way, you have heard what he has been expressing, then almost any attempt to encourage him will help even though the exact issue may not be clear to you. Thus you might share some discouragement along the same lines from your own life(13) and witness to how you learned to have patience and bring it to prayer. Or you might simply encourage patience and the belief that God will communicate God's forgiving love: "You know, God doesn't want you to batter yourself this way...." Gently encourage your directee to notice other aspects of the scripture texts which stress God's desire, eagerness and warmth. Perhaps you might suggest that he repeat one or two of the past week's scripture texts with a slightly different focus. This may be sufficient for you to continue establishing the needed foundation before the First Week begins. To enter into the First-Week material is probably too soon at this point.(14) It is important in this dispositional phase to continue laying the groundwork for the Exercises proper -- like preparing a canvas for the painting.

        Continue to monitor your directee's use of reflective skills. Note whether your directee is making the Review that you introduced a few weeks ago. Also, check out his use of Repetition. How has he returned to some of the points where he experienced movements? This will be a question at the back of your mind as you help him notice what was going on in his prayer experiences. It takes a long time before a directee begins to notice such things on his own. A continual nudging in the direction of Repetition may be necessary throughout the next couple of months before your directee develops this particular wave-length. You can suggest: "Perhaps your experience of discouragement indicates that something is happening.... You may sense the need to return to some of the material you prayed over last week...."

        To complement this, it will be important to keep reminding your directee about Ignatius' advice to remain quietly with the point in which he is finding what he desires, without any eagerness to go on until he has been satisfied [76]. This is similar to notation [2]: "... for it is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but the intimate understanding and relish of the truth"(15) -- all of which is related to the experience of Repetition.

        However, a new directee often wastes much energy reading through the Additional Readings of the prayer unit or those parallel references found in bibles. To discourage this, you could suggest a few scripture texts only instead of all the material suggested in the prayer unit. Sometimes you might even need to insist that your directee remain with one or two lines of a scripture text, or one part of the scripture story, or one symbol for the whole period of the prayer exercise!(16)

        What is the criterion for remaining on a point? It is finding or the possibility of finding "what I desire" -- the phrase used for the Grace for which the directee is praying. Asking for the Grace is a very important part of the prayer exercise. Therefore, it is often helpful to ask, "What Grace are you praying for?" in order to check whether your directee is praying for the Grace. Ask also, "Are you receiving the Grace that you are praying for?" The first question gives you a clue as to what your directee is really asking for; sometimes, in asking God for the Grace, a directee so changes the request that he leaves out the very thing he might need. For example, if your directee is asking to know Jesus more when the Grace indicated is not only to know Jesus more but with a deep-felt knowledge, the omission may indicate something significant. Further, your directee's answer to this first question may indicate whether he is particularizing the Grace according to his perception of his own need at this time.

        This particularization of the Grace should be encouraged. For example, as you explore together some discouragement that the directee is experiencing in the process, you discover together that the directee believes he has to be perfect before he can be loved. And so you might encourage him to pray for the Grace in a more particular way: "As you pray for the Grace and ask for it over and over again, perhaps you could ask for a deeper awareness of how God accepts all you, even with your faults!"

        The way your directee finds himself particularizing the Grace during the prayer exercise indicates how God is moving in him. For example, in answer to the first question, your directee might say something like, "I've been asking God to help me let go of the boxes I put God in." In such a statement, you can recognize the beginning of the experience of creaturehood -- a sense of God's otherness. Over the next several months, you may notice that a general Grace which Ignatius suggests for a series of prayer exercises becomes gradually more specific. Your directee may often use the phrase, "and I found myself asking for," in response to that first question. In other words, as he prays for the Grace over and over again, a subtle shift begins to occur. It is almost as if the directee hardly notices it and uses one or other expression such as, "I found myself," indicating how it flows from his heart in response to the word that is taking root.

        The second question, "Are you receiving the Grace that you are praying for," helps your directee discern for himself what is going on and what he is receiving from God. If he senses that he is receiving the Grace he is praying for, you can begin to inquire whether he recognizes that he should remain on the point of the scripture text where he seemed to be receiving this gift. This again heightens his awareness of the use of Repetition and helps him to recognize whether the particular movement is completed. As Ignatius implies in notation [76], "I will remain on a `point' until I am satisfied," the criterion for moving on is within the directee himself. Little by little he learns to recognize this and he may say, "Yes, I think I should remain there for a few more periods." ... or ... "I feel that it's okay for now." Such responses indicate his awareness of the interior reactions taking place in his heart.

        On the other hand, if your directee senses that he is not receiving the Grace he is seeking, this can lead to a discussion on how to dispose himself more appropriately. Together you can search out with your directee various ways of doing this. The following is a partial list of reasons or areas that you can search out together. This list is more appropriate at this time when your directee is learning how to enter into the Exercises dynamic:

a) Posture during prayer -- When he is not receiving the Grace, it is advisable to experiment and make a change; when the Grace is being received, it is better to remain with the same posture [76]. Harmony between exterior and interior is a way of opening one's heart for the desired Grace. External posture is an important gesture for the interior disposition.

b) Preparation for prayer -- There is the kind of `immediate preparation' that the directee makes just before he begins the prayer exercise. Does he look over the scripture passage beforehand and know the Grace he is seeking? Just before the prayer, does he spend a few moments to recollect himself and to settle down as he considers "how God is beholding me" [75]. For example, he could make an act of reverence such as a slow sign of the cross or a profound bow of the body before the place where he is about to pray. Perhaps he needs to switch off the telephone and check the atmosphere and lighting in the room.

        Then there is the kind of `remote preparation' the directee makes all day long. Perhaps he has let himself be overstimulated by the events of the day -- by trying to accomplish too much within a day or by encountering too many angry colleagues and picking up their negative vibrations. Although the directee is to bring these real-life experiences into his prayer, still he may need a certain amount of relaxation to take the edge off the stresses of the day so that they will not interfere with the Grace(s) being sought. After the appropriate preparation, the best way to settle into a prayer exercise is to let the troubles of the immediate past surface and be accounted for, and then, to let them go.
c) Desire for the Grace -- Does the directee actually desire the Grace for which he is praying? If not, perhaps he should pray for a real desire for the desire for the Grace.

d) Time commitment -- Is he putting in the full time of prayer, or is he "cheating" here and there on his commitment?

e) Inordinate Attachments -- Is there some undue preoccupation to which he is clinging and from which he needs to separate himself -- perhaps a false expectation that he needs absolute silence to make the prayer exercises, or that he has to keep up with all the news, etc.? If the Exercises journey is becoming just "one more duty that I have to squeeze into a busy day," then there may be such an undue preoccupation.

        By discussing the above aspects with your directee, you will be able to judge the appropriateness of introducing the material covered by [73]-[81], usually called Additions by older commentators. The Additions need to be introduced soon. You can do this simply by giving the Additions directly from the Exercises text and by asking your directee to reflect upon them to see how they might be made applicable to this notation-[19] experience, written as they are for the Exercises according to notation [20]. Ask him to apply them to his own situation and suggest that during a later interview you can discuss with him how they could be adapted to his situation.

        The suggestions that Ignatius gives in these Additions pertain to the atmosphere of the First Week where the setting is more controlled. What is implied is the importance of the directee keeping himself in harmony with the Grace(s) he is seeking. The directee making the notation-[19] Exercises should frequently pay attention to the way certain activities of daily living influence his receptivity during prayer. This is particularly true concerning those activities that immediately precede and follow the prayer exercise. Every evening during the Awareness Examen, he should evaluate this. Here are some helpful suggestions, some of which can be added to or modified in later weeks, according to the theme of his prayer:

Your directee will have to discover, by trial and error, what helps to keep himself in harmony with the Grace he desires.

        You might think that these suggestions are self-hypnotic, a kind of manipulation of a directee's psyche. Far from it! The whole person is involved. All the ways by which a person keeps in harmony to dispose oneself are based on the belief that the care of the soul involves the care of both one's external and internal self -- the psyche and the body. The other principle involved in this approach is that whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. For example, a person going to prayer filled with tensions, distractions and heavy involvements receives the word in a distracted way. The psychology behind the Exercises text and its intended dynamic is rather simple:

I do everything that I am able to do to open myself, knowing that it is only God who can give me what I am seeking.
        Another way of saying this would be: I do in my own way what I hope God will do in God's own way. Thus if I am seeking to be sad and to be compassionate with Jesus on the cross, then I try as best as I can to create an atmosphere of sadness in the hope that God will give me the compassionate sadness that I seek. For example, if I as a directee am truly serious and generous concerning my commitment to the Exercises journey, then I will want to avoid getting involved in such things as "partying" during the time of the First- and Third-Week prayer exercises.

        With respect to the Additions (and everything else in this manual!!), remember that these are only suggestions for any number of possible and hypothetical scenarios. You are the prayer guide, and your adaptations and insights may be far more instrumental than written instructions. It is essential for the dynamic of the Exercises journey that the actual spiritual exercises be adapted. The map has to fit the landscape, not the landscape the map. The Sabbath is made for the person, not the person for the Sabbath.

        In this preparatory phase, it is important to check out your directee's faithfulness to his full time commitment. The commitment to a definite time frame is important because it gives both prayer guide and directee an objective context against which to judge what is going on in the directee's subjective experience. You will need this when the going gets tough and it is difficult to judge whether the directee is in Consolation or Desolation. Proposing a specific time commitment is not something to be nudged at or encouraged in an indirect way as one might do in an ongoing spiritual direction context. Though many of my other suggestions fall under the rubric "to encourage rather than impose" or "to lead gently and indirectly rather than tell," the commitment to a certain time frame is not one of these items.

        It would be far better to agree on a shorter time commitment (for example, half an hour rather than an hour) than to make a longer one which a directee is unable to fulfil. Before a person enters the First-Week material, a definite agreement of time commitment and actually fulfilling it are essential. Confrontation on this point may be necessary. If your directee cannot handle such a commitment to a definite time frame, then you ought to be very honest and indicate that the Exercises journey may not be for him. Perhaps he should stop now and enter the journey when he is able to make such a definite commitment. Perhaps he could continue with ongoing prayer guidance in the context of Ignatian spirituality, but he should realize that he is not making the Spiritual Exercises.

        Why should a prayer guide be so strict? First, a definite time frame is important to judge what is happening in prayer. Second, such a commitment is a test of openness, generosity and desire. Third, there will come a time within the Spiritual Exercises later when Desolation will prompt the directee to cut down on the time structure. If the commitment issue is not settled early, you will not be able to use his relationship to the structure as a means to indicate interior reactions such as avoidance or some other form of resistance which is not acknowledged or in evidence. Dealing with this issue before your directee enters into the First-Week material will save you much energy later on.

        Before the end of this interview, you should also check out how your directee is using the Colloquy. Towards the end of the interview, hand out the material of Prayer Unit 4 unless you sense that more time is needed on the themes of Prayer Unit 3. If this is the case, you could suggest Repetitions, different scripture texts, or other adaptations. Always remember to give a focus according to your directee's need or according to what is emerging in his prayer.

`Making A Connection' Versus `Working Through'

        What is essential in the Exercises journey after these Disposition Days is that your directee will be able to allow God to help him work through many of the issues that surface in his prayer [15]. The Disposition Days is the time to lay the foundation for this. As a prayer guide, even if you have the competency as a pastoral counsellor to help your directee work through his personal issues, avoid giving way to the temptation to spend too much time now trying to help him work through issues that would be better left to God through the dynamic of the Exercises journey. Needless to say, in order to move ahead profitably with the Disposition Days, it is always important to make sufficient connections with his issues. But if you get caught now in the working-through, you may not be preparing your directee to allow God to do the working-through later.

        The distinction between `making a connection' and `working through' determines one of the differences between spiritual direction and various forms of psychotherapeutic counselling. `To make a connection' is to reach some authentic appreciation of your directee's experience and to express this real appreciation to your directee. You have a sense of it, even though you do not grasp it entirely nor do you see the issue involved. Your directee feels that you have grasped something of what he is trying to express. He is comfortable with having expressed it and with you having given sufficient time to get a sense of it.

        A psychotherapeutic counsellor, on the other hand, not only makes a connection but also `works through' the issue with the client during the sessions with him. To `work through' implies that the counsellor engages the client in a dialogue which attempts to deal with the experience as fully as possible. When she helps the client work through an issue, the psychotherapeutic counsellor first allows the client to express his experience and then she continues to facilitate the process by which the client deals with and resolves the underlying issues with her. When the psychotherapeutic counsellor `works through,' she takes an active role all through a process which helps unveil some resolution during the interview with the client.

        On the other hand, the prayer guide, when acting specifically as prayer guide, does not generally help a directee `to work things through' during the sessions of prayer guidance. The Exercises journey, according to notations [19] and [20], is established on the belief and practice of the prayer guide equipping the directee to work through with God what needs to be worked through [2], [5], [15]. God is the one who helps the directee by leading him through his own struggles to the needed enlightenment. `Making a connection' means that the prayer guide has listened to the directee with empathy and that the directee has been heard sufficiently enough that he will be able to let God do the `working through.' Your role is to suggest prayer material or a focusing grace based on the connection made. In summary, your role is really to help the directee get hold of his own experience and express his real self to God.(17)

        At times, `working through' will be appropriate and necessary, and `making a connection' will not be sufficient. No doubt, there will be some moments during the course of the Exercises journey when a prayer guide has to help her directee explore issues and help him to talk out an experience more fully during the interview sessions. This may be needed at the beginning of the journey so that a directee will be able to enter the journey with greater openness.

Summary

Specifically:

Generally:

Chapter Five

Listening To Prayer Unit 4 On Freedom
Introducing Prayer Unit 5 And The Principle And Foundation
Awareness Examen

        Prayer Units 4 and 5 deal with the First Principle and Foundation (P & F) -- Prayer Unit 4 from an experiential viewpoint; Prayer Unit 5 from a more reflective and cognitive viewpoint. According to the hypothetical pattern I am using in this manual, two weeks are devoted to this theme rather than one in order to give more time for this theme to be appropriated -- at least with some understanding and hopefully with real desire. Prayer Unit 4 introduces the directee to scriptural examples of Spiritual Freedom. When God is allowed to pour out God's love into our hearts, we become more open to trust, to believe in the impossible, to desire lifestyle changes, to follow challenging inspirations, to grow in single-mindedness, etc. (Rom 5:5).

        Your hope is that your directee will come to appreciate the importance of being spiritually free. This implies:

1. Some understanding of the concept of Spiritual Freedom
    (indifference /detachment) and how it relates to his Christian life;
2. A desire to become spiritually free;
3. A practical awareness of an area in his life where he needs to grow
    in freedom; for example:
  • Some prejudice concerning the relative merits of one calling over another -- church ministry to be more important than teaching in the classroom;
  • Self-centredness which can trivialize God's call to him;
  • Inordinate Attachments which affect decision-making -- for example, the excessive need for nurturing his inner psyche;
  • Fears or anxieties which interfere with the use of his gifts for others;
  • Need to expand his horizons of church, human family, social responsibilities, and self;
  • Awareness that he may have a fixed idea of roles in society and that he needs to become less responsible or more responsible in his interactions with others.
    •         It would be a definite sign of your directee's readiness for the Exercises journey if he were to receive from his prayer exercises of Prayer Unit 4 such understanding and such desire. However, your role is to listen for, and to encourage, whatever aspect of this theme seems to be emerging. Obviously, if your directee is still struggling to pray with scripture, or to put in his committed time of prayer, or to articulate what is going on in his prayer, then all these hopes and things to encourage are mere theory. If so, you may be wondering about his readiness to enter the Exercises journey. I shall address this issue in the next chapter. Meanwhile, attend to your directee's level of growth at this point, and attempt to encourage those very responses and glimmers which foster greater openness to God's action in his heart.
     

            If nothing seems to be emerging from your directee's prayer that harmonizes with this theme, and if you hear no appreciation of what it means to be spiritually free, it may be wise to enter into a direct discussion on the theme of freedom. This is a topic that is basic to both human and spiritual living. A simple discussion of this theme may help to create the mental structure which will bear fruit later. Perhaps you could begin here by witnessing to your own growth in appreciation of this gift:

    "... When I first came across the word Spiritual Freedom, I didn't quite know what it meant. What do you think of when you hear the word freedom?" Or you could say, "Some people react to the Abraham story angrily. It seems that God wasn't too fair! How does it strike you?" Or you could ask, "How do you need God's help to be free?"
    If the theme of Spiritual Freedom is emerging and there is a growing awareness and desire for this gift, you can encourage or affirm these movements by making a comment similar to one of the following:         Somewhere in the course of this interview, investigate how your directee is making use of the Additions. Does he understand the meaning of the principle of harmony, and if so, how is he beginning to apply this principle to the way he lives his day and prepares for his prayer exercises?

            Now is the time to explain the use of the Awareness Examen. Do so, however, according to your directee's level. If he has been receiving the graces of these Disposition Days and if he is growing in the ability to articulate and reflect upon his experiences, explain the steps of the Awareness Examen(18) and stress the experiential part of it -- that is, the reflection upon his interior feelings, reactions, and movements. You could explain how this Awareness Examen is a daily exercise for Spiritual Freedom because it puts one in contact with God's inspirations and leadings throughout the day. It is an instrument to help uncover the blocks to these movements. During the Exercises journey, the Awareness Examen is also a way to check on how one is faithful to the principle of harmony through a relevant use of the Additions. Thus, the Awareness Examen is an instrument of discernment and discovery. Through it, your directee is helped to notice in his daily life the very Grace he prayed for in the prayer exercise.

            On the other hand, if your directee is still struggling to be open in prayer, still confused about how to express his experience, and still somewhat overwhelmed by the concepts you have introduced thus far, simply ask him to set aside a short period with God every evening for a "heart-to-heart talk with Jesus at the end of the day." Teach him to be with God. It may be better to introduce the Awareness Examen with more detail at a later time. We often forget that both the skill and the practice of making the Awareness Examen take a long time to learn.

            If your directee is using the Review of prayer and is learning through it to notice his interior experience, then that practice, in itself, is a good preparation for developing the skill of using the Awareness Examen. The Awareness Examen is to the experience of the past day what the Review is to the experience of the past prayer exercise.(19) In time, the Awareness Examen becomes a very important instrument to help one find God in daily events by noticing one's interior reactions to them and then by reflecting on their meaning. But how should this be taught? Does one teach the framework of the Awareness Examen and hope that the reflecting-on-experience part will somehow take place in time? On the other hand, should one gradually teach the reflecting-on-experience part first? As prayer guide, it will be up to you to decide this according to your perception of your directee's needs. One thing is certain: after the Exercises journey is over, the Awareness Examen will remain a significant instrument for your directee's continuing spiritual growth. The Spiritual Exercises as a whole help a person to grow in the practice of the Awareness Examen. As you continue to help your directee notice what is going on in his prayer and as you gradually encourage him to bring his life experiences to God in prayer, you are helping him to notice the meaning of these experiences. All this is helping him to use the Awareness Examen.

            Since the Awareness Examen(20) often uses the external framework of the general examen [43] with its five `points,' the Awareness Examen is often associated and confused with it. However, the general examen is very different from the Awareness Examen. What Ignatius describes is the `examination of conscience' which is an examination of one's actions and choices in the light of the moral law. The examination of conscience is that practice Catholic Christians use in preparation for receiving the sacrament of reconciliation. Also, many Christians make such an examination of conscience for a few moments during their evening prayers. No doubt, during the exercises of the First Week, you will be encouraging your directee to make the examination of conscience in order to become more aware of his sinfulness. Usually the Awareness Examen presupposes some form of the examination of conscience because one cannot reflect upon how one has been responding to God's word without being aware of areas that are in disharmony with the law of love.

            The examination of conscience usually does not include the Awareness Examen. As Ignatius says in notation [32]: "The purpose of the examination of conscience is to purify the soul and to aid us to improve our confessions." The examination of conscience asks, "Where have I offended God today?"(21) On the other hand, the purpose of the Awareness Examen is to look at, and pay attention to, the experiences and movements that take place within the heart throughout the day. It helps one to discover what God is revealing through these experiences and movements. The Awareness Examen asks, "Where has God been drawing me today? Where was God's grace in evidence today?" The ultimate purpose of the Awareness Examen is to live a life of discernment.

            The Awareness Examen, as we have come to understand and appreciate it, began with the insightful article of George Aschenbrenner published in Review for Religious in 1972. He recognized that Ignatius practised such reflection on his experience as a habit. Near the end of his life, Ignatius said that "whenever he wished, at whatever hour, he could find God."(22) Aschenbrenner adopted the framework for the Awareness Examen from notation [43] which Ignatius used for the general examination of conscience. This framework may be helpful for paying attention to one's interior reactions. However, the skill and art of reflecting on one's interior experiences of the day is the heart of the Awareness Examen, not an external framework. Moreover, during the Exercises journey, this skill of reflecting upon one's interior experiences to discover God's movements is related more to the Guidelines for Discerning Spirits and to the practice and experience of the Review and Repetition than to the general examination of conscience of notation [43].

            You can introduce the Awareness Examen to your directee at some point early in the Exercises, and if fitting, during this interview. As the process of the Exercises continues, hopefully several of the following dimensions of the Awareness Examen, particularly c) and e), will be appropriated:

    a) The framework;
    b) An implied examination of conscience;
    c) A constant attempt to reflect upon his interior experience, both
        psychologically and spiritually;
    d) A checking on his use of the Additions;
    e) In time, a recognition of his interior experiences as movements of
        Consolation or Desolation and a facility to discern these movements
        whenever he is making decisions.
            Towards the end of this interview, give your directee Prayer Unit 5. On the supposition that you will want him to pray over this material as is, explain the two Graces being sought:
    a) The first is that of understanding.
    b) The second is a deep trust that Jesus, now risen and alive, has
        the power to give the enlightenment and the strength needed by
        the directee to hear, and then to follow, wherever and however
        God calls him.
            Spend time stressing how a more reflective approach ought to be used for the a) - d) prayer exercises on the P & F. In this approach, the directee brings all of his powers of assimilating and reflecting that he would bring naturally when he reads a special letter from someone he loves.(23) No doubt, you have been encouraging your directee to be more passive in prayer with scripture, to listen and let go. For this phase, you could encourage a more active and reflective form of prayer:
    "... I would suggest you approach the first half of your prayer exercise with the same concentration that you would use when reading a very special letter from someone you love. Read the material carefully and mull it over with your imagination, mind, and heart. Then in the latter half of the period, hang loose. Let the words and images sink in. Allow time for your intuition and God to juggle some of the images and thoughts and to give you a deepening appreciation of them. Your careful and reflective reading is like tending vines in a garden.... Your hanging loose is like allowing rain to nurture them.... This prayerful reflection on the First Principle and Foundation is intended to establish a structure for the process of the Exercises to develop. It's like a wooden trellis on which the vines can grow...."
            The purpose of asking your directee to write his own rendition of the P & F is to further his understanding of it. This understanding will be very important for him after the Exercises journey. We live our spiritual lives and we make decisions not just from prayer experiences but also from values which we frequently articulate to ourselves through principles and maxims. After the Exercises journey has been completed, values such as those contained in the P & F will be helpful: choosing what is `most conducive' to God's service, importance of indifference or Spiritual Freedom when making choices, all created things can be used inasmuch as their purpose is respected, etc.

            Finally, spend some time focusing your directee on the Risen Lord and his Spirit as in the prayer matter of e) and f): "... When Ignatius uses the phrase, `serve God our Lord,' as in the first line of the P & F [23], he is referring to the Lord Jesus. Right from the beginning of the Exercises journey, you are with Jesus Risen. The P & F may appear difficult. Don't worry. Jesus is with you throughout. Let Jesus' Spirit give you the strength and the power that you need...."

            The P & F is made up of a series of truths and principles that are basic to a serious Christian life. They represent an attitude of mind and heart that comes from the energy of being accepted and loved. This disposes the heart to express this love in deeds: "What can I return to our God for all that God has given to me?" (Ps 116:12). The desire for that energy which empowers a person to live a life in harmony with the P & F is a sign of readiness for the First Week of the Exercises journey.

            The Disposition Days, of which the P & F is a part, is the preparatory phase before a directee begins the Four Weeks of the Exercises journey. This phase can take a very short or a very long time.(24) Some may complete this preparatory phase in the few weeks envisaged by this manual; others may need several months. The foundational grace of this phase is the experience of creaturehood with its deep-felt awareness of one's basic identity as a child of God. This cannot be mere notional belief. The real belief in one's identity as a beloved creature depends on a nurturing God present NOW as one becomes deeply aware of how one's personal history and God's involvement actually intersect.

            "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" can be the overall rubric under which the Exercises function. Some truths, however, are very hard to take and cannot be deeply received unless there is a safe place on which to stand while one is absorbing them. The function of the Dispositions Days is to ensure such a safe place so that a directee may have a secure sense that freedom is really possible. Without this sense, it is too difficult, or even impossible, to assimilate the subject matter of the First Week -- the fallen world and one's own sin as a contributing part in it. During this preparatory phase, particularly in the articulation of the P & F, some idea of the work ahead is established. The goal is outside of oneself -- in the future with God's grace. This goal shapes and qualifies the entire work. Furthermore, it establishes the paradox: if one is to be spiritually free, one must be willing to give up control.(25)

            Spiritual Freedom is the goal of the whole process of the Exercises journey. Ignatius expresses it this way: the Exercises have as their purpose "to conquer oneself and regulate one's life without determining oneself through any tendency that is disordered" [21]. Expressed in another way, Spiritual Freedom exists in those moments when a person is so filled with love for God that all the desires of one's heart and the affectivities, thoughts, decisions and actions that flow from these desires are oriented towards God. Ignatius knows that it is not the directee who does the "conquering and the regulating"; he knows that this is God's work. Freedom comes from God communicating love and energy in a personal relationship of grace:

            In the Spiritual Exercises, when seeking the Divine Will, it is more fitting and much better, that the Creator and Lord, God's very self, should communicate God's self to the devout soul, inflaming it with God's own love and praise, and disposing it for the way in which it will be better able to serve God in future. So, the director of the Exercises should not turn or incline to one side or the other, but standing in the centre like a balance, leave the Creator to act immediately with the creature, and the creature with one's Creator and Lord [15].

            This notation captures the mystery of God's communication and the prayer guide's role during the Exercises journey. It means that the role of the prayer guide is to sit on the sidelines and to discern if someone or something other than God is doing the communicating. Some prayer guides interpret this notation as if this applies to the preparatory phases. I believe differently. I believe that this notation applies only when your directee is open enough to allow God's personal communication -- the point when your directee has come to the Contemplative Attitude, when he has finally allowed himself to be available to God, when God's mystery is allowed to touch his mystery. This is the time to pull back: to watch, to wait and to discern. From this point onwards, let the dynamic behind the structure of the Exercises work.

            As prayer guide, what is your stance before this moment is reached? In my opinion, you can become as involved as necessary in order to help dispose your directee for this moment. Sometimes you will teach different methods of prayer or different ways to relax. Other times you will simply chit-chat to establish the kind of relaxed atmosphere that might aid your directee's openness with God. My point is this: before that moment when your directee's real self is open to God's personal communication, you can, and should, enter into the dynamic more directly. But after that moment, you should stand in the centre like a balance or "be like a balance at equilibrium" (Puhl). In notation [15], I believe that Ignatius is referring to a directee who has entered into the dynamic of the Exercises journey.

            It is dangerous to interpret the instructions of the Exercises to the prayer guide, such as that in notation [15], too literally with a directee who has not allowed God to touch his real self. The danger is one that psychologists call `transference.' It can happen in the following way. The "literal" prayer guide interprets these instructions as applying in all situations. Therefore she waits on the sidelines for the movements to take place. Not wanting to interfere with God's activity, she simply waits with a kind of non-involved passivity with her struggling directee. Meanwhile, her struggling directee, both unconsciously and consciously, misinterprets why his prayer guide is sitting on the sidelines. At this point, the directee begins to relate as he once did to some threatening person in his past -- teacher, coach, parent, sibling, etc. Transference has taken place! At this point, the prayer guide herself can be caught with a transference of her own -- a countertransference!

           We are all familiar with the obvious ways we can be caught with inappropriate reactions. A directee, not receiving sufficient affection at home, looks to his prayer guide for it. A prayer guide who is threatened by any expression of anger fails to notice the anger that is being expressed by the directee. We also know how our own personal need to have significance can prejudice the way we listen to another. But as prayer guides, we can unintentionally misuse our skills by not recognizing the co-dependent relationship that is beginning to happen. Thus, it is very important for us to be aware of our own state of Consolation or Desolation when we are listening to our directees. It is usually when we are experiencing Desolation that unhelpful responses to our directees can arise. "The thoughts [and therefore, the interpretations] that flow from Consolation are the opposite of those that flow from Desolation" [317].

            How does a prayer guide avoid the subtle transferences and obvious unhelpful responses? Both are avoided by an honest, authentic relationship. My personal belief is that a directee should be emotionally free enough to reject the prayer guide. If the prayer guide is real, not role-playing, and if a directee is able to see the guide's faults and quirks, he will then be free enough to assess the relationship for what it is and not endow it with the magic it does not possess! Therefore, I would suggest that, as a rule of thumb, a prayer guide should be free enough to enter into an honest and authentic relationship. Before a directee has reached the Contemplative Attitude, a prayer guide should be free enough to help the directee with any method that might aid the development of the Contemplative Attitude. After this is reached, a guide should be free enough to be a balance at equilibrium. Always, the prayer guide should aid the directee towards freedom and independence from herself.

            It may be wise here to list some of the key freedoms that a directee is likely to experience during this phase. There is the freedom:

            Later in the First Week, hopefully your directee will become free enough to acknowledge the subtle influences of the world on his Inordinate Attachments and, consequently, on the decisions he makes. In time, he may even have the freedom to desire and to pray for a simpler lifestyle in cooperation with others for the sake of the reign of God. Hopefully your directee is being led gradually to encounter these facets and deepening levels of Spiritual Freedom. He might not experience all of them in the course of his Exercises journey. They are, however, all significant gifts of God's love.

    Summary

    Specifically: Generally:
     


    Chapter Six

    Completing The Disposition Days
    Introducing The First Week Of The Spiritual Exercises
    Introducing Prayer Unit 6
    Short Commentary On P & F
    Use Of The Literal Text Of The Exercises

            We are now approaching the last interview of the Disposition Days and introducing the prayer material of the First Week. Hence this interview could include the following goals:

    a) Listening to the directee's experience of prayer material of Prayer Unit 5;
    b) Discussion with him concerning the meaning of the P & F;
    c) Reflection with him on the real learnings of this preparatory phase;
    d) A decision as to whether you should proceed with the suggested
        prayer pattern or with some changes and adaptations;
    e) Introduction to the First Exercise of the First Week.
    Listening To Directee's Prayer Experience

            As you listen to your directee's prayer experience, notice how he has been relating to the text of the P & F. Does there seem to be some appreciation and some understanding of it? Does he have a desire for this way of living? Has there been any appreciation which, perhaps, he himself has failed to notice; for example, he may say, "I definitely found the text of Ignatius rather dull, dry, and uninspiring ... but I agree with its basic content. I certainly would not have expressed it in Ignatius' way. All I know is that I really want to do what God wants...." Notice, from the way he has expressed himself, a kind of openness, a desire! This might lead to a discussion of the meaning of the P & F, particularly after you discover how he handled a) - d) questions of Prayer Unit 5. If he seems to generalize too much, then spend some time helping him to be more specific.(26) This will ultimately help him grow in the ability to understand and make correct judgements about his own interior movements.

    Discussion Of The Meaning Of The P & F

            Here, I seem to be stressing understanding more than experience. For Ignatius, understanding and feelings go together. He does not separate knowing from remembering, from feeling, or from imagining in the way that we do in our scientific and more rationalistic culture. In his historical context, feelings and thoughts were combined; unfortunately for spirituality, we separate them. In line with this, Ignatius invites us to pray for "spiritual appreciation" [62] and for an "intimate knowledge" [104]. Both are examples of the kind of understanding that contains desire and feeling -- an understanding of the heart. Further, unless one grasps with reflection and judgement what the Exercises text is about, along with the spiritual exercises it contains, one runs the risk of being superficial.(27) The P & F represents the summary of the fruit of the Exercises journey. It describes, in dry philosophical language of another age,(28) what Ignatius hopes will take place during the experience of the Exercises journey.

            It will be helpful to prepare your own answers from your own experience for the same a) - d) questions so that you will be able to speak more personally and concretely with your directee about the meaning of the P & F. Consult the general remarks further on in this chapter for a summary of points that may be of help in this discussion.

            Through this discussion, stress the decision-making context of the Exercises. The decision-making context is important for your directee to appreciate, particularly, if he has been doing well so far and is likely to use the discernment techniques after his Exercises journey is over. However, it is even more important that you appreciate the decision-making context of the Exercises so that you will be capable of noticing how God might be calling your directee in the next months.

            Discernment, in Ignatian spirituality, primarily implies conscious decision-making. One learns the skill of using the Guidelines for Discerning Spirits so that one will be able to discern correct decisions about one's life both during and after the Exercises journey; whether these decisions are small or large, in one's private world or in one's public world. In Ignatian spirituality, discernment primarily designates responsible choosing with God[230], [231].

            As the interview progresses, notice whether your directee has experienced the presence of Jesus implied in e) and f) of Prayer Unit 5. Is he aware of how Jesus, the Risen Lord, is with him on this prayer journey? Is he aware that Jesus' Spirit is the one who gives him the Grace he is seeking by leading him through the needed enlightenment and strength toward the gift of Spiritual Freedom? Jesus' power now at work in us can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20)!

    Reflection On Learnings Of Preparatory Phase

            As this preparatory phase comes to an end, it is helpful to spend time reflecting together upon the learnings and experiences of the past weeks:

    "During these past several weeks, how have you grown? ... What have you learned about prayer? about yourself? about God? ... What key graces have you received? ... What has God shown you that you would want to remember as you proceed with the Exercises journey? ..."
    Through such a reflection, you hope that he "claims" and "owns" the gifts he has been given during this phase, that he appreciates his experience of being loved as creature, and particularly, that he knows from experience how he has to "let go and let God" do the work in him.
     

    Decision About How To Proceed

            No doubt over the past couple of weeks, you have been asking yourself whether your directee is ready to enter into the First Week. Theoretically, a directee is ready for the First Exercise when he shows the signs that were outlined earlier. As suggested, some of the preliminary signs would be sufficient. It is possible, however, that your directee has begun to proceed well enough and is beginning to let go in prayer, but you judge that he could use a little more time to be ready. If this is the situation, you could either:

    Delay for another week by asking your directee to pray over certain definite texts from the past five weeks;
    or
    Introduce the First Week with scripture only. Use some scripture texts from the Additional Readings of Prayer Unit 6.
            On the other hand, you may perceive that your directee will need a longer time, even the better part of a year, in this dispositional phase. In this situation, you might still consider using the Exercises. You will need some prayer patterns to help your directee focus and learn to articulate his experiences. So you could move ahead by proposing most of the prayer units in this manual. The structure suggested may help to keep both you and your directee in a prayer guidance context. As well, many parts of the Exercises can help. If you use them for this, remember that you will be "using the Exercises to prepare your directee for the Exercises." In some places, you may need to adapt the prayer units more than in other places. Often with such a directee, many graces of the Exercises might be received at a later stage. Thus, during the Third Week, he might receive the graces that he was not ready to receive earlier.

            If your directee is still learning to focus or to articulate his prayer experiences, then make sure that you expect only this for the present. You might need to lower your own private expectations! No doubt, as you proceed to guide your directee, you will inevitably need to surface your own other hidden agendas that might "contaminate" your helping relationship.

            Notation [18] indicates a principle valid for the Exercises journey according to notations [19] and [20]; namely, the use of the Exercises text with the individual exercises should be adapted to the ability of the directee. Consequently, a directee, who is so filled with anxiety or has such a negative self-image that he is unable to move beyond the thought of sin to the hope and joy of God's forgiveness, could not "easily bear" praying over the literal texts of the First Week. In fact, you may judge that the literal text of the First Week should not be proposed at all, but rather an adapted version or scripture alone should be used. Some of the following suggestions may be helpful:

    a) David Fleming's "A Contemporary Reading" from Draw Me Into Your Friendship.(29)
    b) My own paraphrase from Orientations, Vol. 1 (revised and regendered), is closer in expression to the actual Exercises text than Fleming's "A Contemporary Reading" and is edited with the awareness that many directees are likely to remain in the Healing Mode(30) for most of the Exercises journey. This paraphrase could be profitably used in the First Week.
    c) The scriptural themes from this same Orientations, Vol. 1, p.89ff, "Through the Way of Purification," follow the same pattern as that of the First Week and could be used in their entirety.
    d) A much gentler approach during the First Week would be to use the following themes from Orientations, Vol. 1:

            In attempting to respect your directee's needs and before you decide to adapt the exercises of the First Week, make sure that you are free from your own personal biases that may arise from your own past struggles with the use of the literal text of the Exercises. Do not project your own needs and fears upon the directee because you might hinder the possibility of a more profound experience for your directee.

    Introducing First Exercise Of First Week

            So much for the possible adaptations that might be appropriate for the First Week. I continue now with the supposition that you will be proposing the literal text of the First Week of the Exercises and I make some suggestions for the introduction of the First Exercise.

            Notice how the pattern for Prayer Unit 6 has been set up. It begins with the a) and b) texts on God's loving mercy in order to establish the context for all the prayer exercises of the First Week. The f) scripture text describes the logical thrust and direction of sin without the saving love of Jesus. The context is one of God's protective and continuing love who is saving us now from the inertia of sin within our environment and our lives. The following are some suggested comments you might make:

    Short Commentary On P & F For Purposes Of Discussion

            When you introduce the P & F or listen to your directee's prayer experience on this theme, it is helpful to make some general remarks to explain its relationship to the Exercises journey as a whole. This explanation lays a groundwork for the later understanding that Ignatian spirituality is a spirituality of choice. Perhaps the commentary below may contain some ideas for your remarks.

    Praise, reverence and service:

            These are different facets of the felt experiences of being loved by God. They result from the actual felt presence of God's Spirit in one's heart (Lk 1:46, Rom 5:5). God's love for us and God's grace do not depend on our praise, reverence or service.

    God our Lord:

            This refers to Jesus, Lord.(32) The risen Lord Jesus, the Christ, is there right from the beginning of the Exercises.

    Service:

            For Ignatius, the service of Jesus is the furthering of his Abba's reign. This cannot be separated from cooperating with others in preserving the gifts of our planet and in sharing our resources for a more just world.

    All other things:

            Here Ignatius means everything and every thing that is not God and not my "real self": gifts, health, ways of prayer, body, society, limitations, use of gasoline, insurance plans, education, television, wheat, food, job, self-image, money, capitalism, political philosophy, books, church practices, second career, home, volunteer work, donations, size of family, way of raising one's children, etc.

    To help one:

            This sounds like a very utilitarian and a Jesus-and-me spirituality without regard for others, the immediate environment and that of the universe, and future generations. In an earlier culture, a utilitarian attitude towards the world may have been more appropriate. However, we know from our interdependence within the global village how our use of created things must also regard their relationship with others and with all creation. We must remember that the universe itself is a primary revelation of God's will for us. More mining and more devastation of the rain forests, which destroy the environment of our planet, can not be in harmony with our praise and service of God. Supporting, without question, institutions that are unjust to others is not in harmony with Christ's Spirit. All created things are gifts of the Trinity which reflect their desire to give themselves to all members of the human family. Through these gifts, we, in turn, share our lives with God in the midst of the human family.

    In as far as:

            Our interaction with the created universe can skew creation itself and our intended orientation and goal. At that point, our relationship to the created universe becomes disordered. Thus, created things, once gifts, can become hindrances -- idols and instruments of our greed and destructiveness. If our relationships with the things of creation are disordered, our choices, which flow from such relationships, are also disordered. For example, an Inordinate Attachment to status or security will prevent us from choosing a riskier work that may be more appropriate for advancing God's reign. Consequently, structures evolving from these choices and activities will not be in harmony with God's desires for us.

    Indifferent:

            To be indifferent is to be detached, free from, and balanced with respect to all those here-and-now influences that may interfere with making "correct and good"(33) choices [175]. We cannot be indifferent once we know God's desires for us.

    We must make ourselves:

            These few words can be misleading because all we can do is hold ourselves "as if" we are indifferent or free. The experience of real interior freedom is God's gift. Hopefully during the Exercises journey, there will be a moment in which directees will become free enough to discover God's desires for themselves. Spiritual Freedom is a life-long purpose of our spiritual searching. But it can also be experienced in a moment of time. It is this latter momentary Spiritual Freedom which is the immediate goal of the Exercises journey.(34) Furthermore, the more open we are to receiving this gift, the freer we become in our day-to-day lives.

    Choosing what is the `more':

            The `more' means that we desire to go beyond making good moral choices in our lives. This desire is a reason why directees enter into the Exercises journey [19], [20]. This freedom is a freedom to choose work, ministries, and ways of living that go beyond and affect the greater good. For example, a nurse, who is a widower with older children, and who has executive and business skills, reaches a point in the Exercises journey where he foresees himself choosing one of these two realistic possibilities:

    a) To spend time in a refugee camp helping to care for the needy;
    b) To enter an executive branch of the Red Cross foreign health service.
            Both possibilities are good; both are experienced as being in harmony with God's desires for him. After thoroughly investigating the data and after praying through the issues involved, he discovers that, in the light of Jesus' story, the second possibility for him, is the `more.' It would allow him to help more people in the long term because of its potential for affecting structural changes. It would also allow him to experience more fully what it means to be a follower of Jesus.(35)

    Dealing With Technical Desolation As Emotional Upset

            Sometimes it is more practical and helpful to treat what is technically Desolation simply as emotional upset. Your directee might have entered the Exercises journey with a decision of major importance just newly made, and although this decision could still be changed, his mind is already made up. However, when he is confronted with the P & F, he gets upset because he might have to go through the struggle of re-making his decision all over. This fear may be well-founded. God may indeed be inviting him to reconsider this decision within the context of Spiritual Freedom. In a case such as this, you need to determine what the reaction means. Counsellors often ask, "Where is this reaction coming from?" So should you as prayer guide.

            First of all, this reaction may flow from his insecurity; perhaps he is the type of person who doubts himself so much that any hint of a mistaken choice throws him into a panic. If so, encourage him to stay with the original decision and to pray for the freedom to trust himself more, to be free from the panic, and to proceed with the Exercises journey.

            On the other hand, God may be challenging him to re-negotiate the original decision. If this seems to be the situation, then it would be helpful to suggest that he pray for freedom. This prayer for freedom is to be made at any time during any assigned prayer exercises, whenever he becomes aware of an Inordinate Attachment to his original decision [16].

            However, there is a third scenario -- your directee may manifest a combination of these two. If so, it may be better to allow him to talk out his fears and to encourage him as you would have in the first instance. Let the challenge be faced at a later time. Usually it will surface again.

            The second scenario represents a directee who has a good self-image and is confident. The first and third scenarios represent a directee whose self-confidence is so low that his anxieties and panic may interfere with his prayer experiences for two or three months. Technically all these scenarios are examples of Desolation. At this early stage in the Exercises journey, it would be better to treat only the second situation as Desolation, but it would be more practical to treat the first and third situations as emotional upset alone. For the directee in the first scenario, the emotional upset might later be revealed as a way for him to recognize his need to trust his own interior experiences.(36)

            For the directee in the third scenario, the Desolation of challenge will probably surface when he has grown in self-confidence flowing from God's healing and forgiving love.

    To Use Or Not To Use The Literal Text

            Why would a prayer guide ask a directee to use the literal text of the Exercises for the prayer exercises in place of a more up-to-date version of the text or scripture alone? Can a directee not receive as deep an experience from the use of any adapted version? From the perspective of this manual, the answer presumes you are using the Exercises as an instrument of formation. As well, the presumption is that your directee is rather self-accepting and has leadership potential with the hope he will use the Exercises as an instrument of ministry with others.

            The literal text has more "bite" than most adapted versions. It forces the directee to surface his own operative belief system as he struggles to understand Ignatius' expression of the symbols of revelation. For example, his struggle to understand the Third Point of the First Exercise may help him realize that he really never has believed in eternal separation as a possible consequence of his sin! This lack of belief is a possible block to the experience of Jesus' forgiveness and salvation. Admittedly, the use of the text to surface the directee's operative theology was not the purpose of the original Exercises text.

            The Spiritual Exercises was written in a culture with a worldview different from our own. This worldview was common to all the potential directees of Ignatius' era. They probably understood and thought about sin, world, God, heaven, hell, spirits, infancy narratives, church, Christians, non-Christians, and authority in much the same way as Ignatius did. Though adaptation was always presumed, the idiom in which it was written was part of the common ground between prayer guide and directee. No cultural translation -- between past and present, between a more static worldview and a more developmental worldview, between hierarchical exclusiveness and consensual inclusiveness -- was necessary the way it is now. Both prayer guide and directee possessed the same language to talk about their religious experiences. Therefore the prayer guide was to give only brief introductions to the prayer material [2].

            Our time is so different. There is little common ground between directees even within the same Christian denomination. Any one tradition today manifests a pluralism of worldviews. One contemporary reading that fits one directee might need to be translated before it fits another! We might use the same religious language but our words carry different meanings. Some adapted versions of the Exercises use such general phrases that different persons will accept them without question even though they themselves possess differing notional and operative theologies. The literal text, by forcing both prayer guide and directee to discuss its meaning, can become a good instrument to deal with each other's operative belief systems because the literal text can:

            Furthermore, scripture alone, independent of the literal text, is not as focused. Where in scripture do you find the kinds of comparisons that Ignatius instructs a directee to make in the First Exercise? Where in scripture do you find a text that is as focused as any one `point' of the Three Classes of Persons?

            Professional teachers will tell you that students often miss the point when, however clear, a teacher's presentation requires no real personal engagement by the students. They seem to get the insight and grasp the point more effectively when they have to wrestle with the material. Could this principle not also be true when directees are introduced to the concepts and technical language of the Exercises?

            For the directee who is educated, has leadership potential, and is properly disposed, the Ignatian text can become a tool of spiritual leadership and discernment. After the Exercises journey is over, his familiarity with the literal text will help him reflect on, and hopefully understand, his own personal experiences according to a traditionally accepted and a more universal religious language. Thus his varied experiences during the Exercises journey will not be simply "good experiences" with some generalized understanding and some sense of what they "might" mean; they will be specified by a correct name as an experience of Indifference or Inordinate Attachment or `call' or Desolation or Consolation, etc. Later when he encounters other religious experiences in himself or in others, this use of the literal text will have become an instrument to help him think about, recognize, and make judgements about these experiences. Also for those directees who want to develop their ministry skills more professionally in a variety of settings, the literal text will serve as a common framework giving a basic homogeneous language for sharing and understanding spiritual experiences and for arriving at Communal-Societal decisions based on these experiences.
     
     

    Summary

    Specifically: Generally:

         Reflections on P & F

    Use of literal text:
  • Gives more focus;
  • Surfaces operative theology;
  • Establishes a common ground that:
  • Gives framework for understanding discernment in pluralistic culture while still keeping in touch with consistent tradition;
  • Empowers others with practical technology for decision- making for future use one-on-one and with groups.


    • Endnotes For The Disposition Days

    1.The preparatory phase for the notation-[19] Exercises journey, presented in this manual, presumes that a directee either has already received guidance and development in prayer or is able to make use of these structures easily. If this is the situation of your directee, these first six chapters represent a revisiting, a solidifying of the methods and structures presumed at the beginning of the Exercises journey.

    If this is not the situation of your directee, these first six chapters represent, in a collapsed form, the work of preparation that may take a longer period of time than that presented in this manual.

    One of the very useful approaches that I have not given in this manual for this preparatory phase is the `blessed-history' approach. This approach became accessible to spiritual directors through the work of John J. English, S.J., and the Guelph Centre of Spirituality at the time when many people in North America became interested in discovering their roots and when psychological studies were making family-of-origin techniques popular. The `blessed-history' approach has become significant as an instrument to facilitate the preparatory phase for the Exercises journey. The reason that I have not suggested it is simply the fact that I have conceived this section as a training manual for beginning spiritual directors and prayer guides desiring to guide directees in the notation-[19] Exercises. When a prayer guide uses the approach of this manual, a directee inevitably deals with his `blessed history' in a less formal way. But when the director of the Exercises is not a seasoned director, the reverse does not usually follow; namely, that when a directee prays through his `blessed history,' he is automatically being prepared to make use of the structures of the Exercises.

    For an understanding behind the use of one's `blessed history' in various settings of spiritual direction consult John J. English, S.J., Spiritual Freedom: From an Experience of the Ignatian Exercises to the Art of Spiritual Guidance, 2nd Edition (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1995), Chapter 17, "Life Experienced as Graced History," p.261ff.

    For some useful techniques to facilitate a directee's prayer over his `blessed history,' consult my Orientations, Vol. 1: A Collection of Helps for Prayer (Guelph: Loyola House, 1994), "My Blessed History," pp.109-104; "Remembering God's Presence in my History," pp.115-118.

    2.The prayer units propose material for prayer exercises each day except on the day of the interview. Supplementary prayer units after Prayer Unit 30 give some alternate approaches.

    If you desire that a prayer exercise be made on the day of the interview, you could suggest a Repetition or a special reflection period in preparation for the interview session or another prayer exercise using a scripture text from one of the Additional Readings.

    All the prayer units have been set up as if you were to meet with your directee on the day after the f) prayer period in each unit. However, as the Exercises journey progresses, it may be more helpful to organize the interviews in such a way that you meet with your directee on the day after the two new prayer exercises -- usually the a) and b) segments on each prayer unit -- and before the Repetitions. The reason for this is that Repetition is intended to further the spiritual movements taking place. When you help your directee to recognize and encourage the forward movement already taking place in his prayer periods, discernment, more properly speaking, occurs.

    3.For this, you can use prayer materials outlined in several places in Orientations, Vol. 1: A Collection of Helps for Prayer (Guelph: Loyola House, 1994).

    4. In this manual, Chapter 31, "Early Stages In Ongoing Spiritual Direction," demonstrates how this list is derived and how it can be usefully categorized under four basic headings.

    5.Consult the chapter on noticing interior facts in The Practice of Spiritual Direction (New York: The Seabury Press, 1982), by William A. Barry, S.J., and William J. Connolly, S.J.

    6.Later on, a developed relationship with trust and rapport makes up for a multitude of listening blunders! When you have empowered your directee to begin discerning for himself, the quality of trust and mutuality makes up for your slip-ups. For further help in these listening skills, consult Margaret Ferris, Compassioning, Basic Counselling Skills for Christian Care-Givers (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1993).

    7.On the transformation of images, consult John J. English, S.J., Spiritual Freedom (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1995), Chapter 16, "Transformation: A Change of Images," p.239ff.

    8.Consult Chapter 31, "The Early Stages In Ongoing Spiritual Direction," and Chapter 32, "The Conversion Cycle In Prayer Dynamics And Program Design," in this manual.

    9.These are technically named Private Thoughts which Ignatius refers to in notations [17] and [32] of the Exercises; that is, the thought-out thoughts, the thoughts that one has consciously worked out rather than the spontaneous thoughts that have occurred during the prayer exercise. A prayer guide is to be attentive to the interior reactions that flow through a directee as he was doing the prayer exercise. Some of these reactions are feelings; some are occurring or half-evolved thoughts; some are a combination. Many of these reactions arise from the less-than-conscious part of ourselves. The more conscious, controlled thoughts and insights are not the primary arena for discernment [17]. A prayer guide listens primarily to what arises from the directee's heart. For a further exploration of this point, consult Chapter 29, "Guidelines For Discerning Spirits," pp.448f.

    10.As in notation [157] -- "Note," and in the Triple Colloquies [63], [147], [156], [159].

    11.In her book, The Discerning Heart: Discovering a Personal God (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1993), Maureen Conroy, R.S.M., explains with illustrations how growth takes place when a directee is encouraged to stay with the resistance. Consult pp.75-91. Also consult the last half of her book for real-life examples of reflective listening and facilitative guidance in the context of ongoing spiritual direction and the Guidelines for Discerning Spirits.

    12.Madeline Birmingham and William J. Connolly, in Witnessing to the Fire: Spiritual Direction and the Development of Directors, One Center's Experience (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1994), give very good examples of helping directees pay attention to their deeper reactions and feelings (pp.128-154; 209-232). Their context is one of ongoing spiritual direction but the approach is basically the same for directees at this time in the Exercises. Also, at any other time during the Exercises, particularly if your directee is more in a Healing Mode, this is always an effective approach.

    13.Your prudence will determine whether this type of sharing is appropriate or not. Your witness is helpful when your directee knows from his meetings with you that you really do recognize that his prayer experiences are unique to him and are not the same as yours.

    14. On the other hand, if the `reflective skills' and the Contemplative Attitude are in place, you may judge that this is the time to move into the First Week.

    15. "Truth" for Ignatius was different from the truth of modern scientific thought or from the objective rationalism that preceded it. For Ignatius, truth was something you feel and it was something of the heart. In this sense, Ignatius was rooted in the culture of the medieval worldview. His genius was that he discovered and gave us, through the Exercises, a technique of reflecting on one's spontaneous interior experiences that is consistent with the ways we experience ourselves in our present developmental worldview. In the Glossary, consult Classicist Worldview, Discursive Prayer.

    16. At this time, the reading of footnotes and commentaries might indicate ignorance on the part of a new directee; later, on the other hand, it might indicate Desolation.

    17. Professional practitioners of the Exercises in the closed retreat setting often remark how, during the Exercises, some directees receive as much insight and healing as another person might in two years of therapy on a bi-weekly basis. The dynamic of the interaction between God and the directee, in itself accomplishes much healing. During the Exercises journey in the closed setting of notation [20], a director might only need to meet daily with her directee for a short space of time.

    18. Among the different ways of making the Awareness Examen, you might find helpful those in my Orientations, Vol. 1 (Guelph: Loyola House, 1994), "Examen Of Consciousness," pp.159-160. Also, "Developing A Discerning Heart," pp.161-176, is a practical process which gradually teaches directees how to listen to their own interior reactions and leads them to the art of noticing spiritual movements. This latter format was developed for those directees in ongoing spiritual direction who are not in touch with their feelings.

    19. This same point, concerning the parallel between the Awareness Examen in daily life and the Review, is made by William A. Barry, S.J., in Spiritual Direction and the Encounter with God: A Theological Inquiry (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1992), Chapter 3, "The Religious Dimension of Experience," p.24ff.

    20. This is frequently called the consciousness examen, examen of consciousness, or awareness exercise. Throughout this manual, I use the term Awareness Examen.

    21. We presume that our directees know how to make some form of examination of conscience because this is so basic, but Ignatius did not presume this as we can note from his instructions in notation [19]. He was writing during an era when frequent use of the sacraments of reconciliation and eucharist was not common, and so persons had to be taught the fundamentals again. Do we also have to teach some fundamental practices today?

    Remember this basic principle when guiding another's prayer: subjective experience is validated by objective practice -- "by their fruits you will know them." A prayer guide ought to give some thought to issues related to this dictum. What practices or outward signs in worship and in both interpersonal and societal dealings would you expect to be present in your directee's life -- signs on the external level that indicate that he is growing in discipleship? I think some form of the examination of conscience is one of these practices.

    22. George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J., "Consciousness Examen," Review for Religious, vol. 31 (1972), pp.14-21.

    23. This image of reading a special letter from someone we love contains all the aspects of what Ignatius means by `Meditation Using the Three Powers of the Soul.' This meaning is much different from the one communicated by older commentators which depended on a 19th century understanding of the Ignatian text. They equated this method of prayer with a discursive method which was more of an analytical exercise.

    24. Peter Faber, one of Ignatius' early followers, spent two years in this phase because Ignatius did not judge that Faber was ready to undertake the Exercises. However, when Faber's Exercises journey was over, Ignatius judged Faber's experience to be profound. He recognized how Faber could become an important director of the Exercises in his time.

    25. The paragraph which begins with the words: "The Disposition Days of which the P & F is a part..." to the end of the following paragraph marked by this endnote is taken and adapted from Ruth Barnhause, Journal of Pastoral Care (September 1979). Many of the words and phrases are hers.

    26. Directees, as do other religious people, often use generalized code language in talking about their prayer experiences. Some dislike being concrete. Sharing of experiences with God sometimes tastes and smells like processed cheese! (Thanks to Peter LeBlanc for this image.) However, this does not deny the fact that most very down-to-earth and spiritually mature persons can only express what is deepest in their hearts through symbol and metaphor. But they do so with the taste and smell of real cheese.

    27. Confer Jm 1:23; Mt 13:23; notations [2], [22].

    28. The text of the P & F is dated from the time Ignatius went to the university in Paris, two decades after the main body of the Exercises were written.

    29. David L. Fleming, Draw Me Into Your Friendship (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996). His contemporary reading could be used by itself.

    30. In this manual consult, Chapters 24, 30, and the Glossary.

    31. Ignatius wrote from a male point of view. The typical sin of men is pride. In our western and North American culture, the typical sin of women, until recent times, has been `hiding,' with a fear of acknowledging and expressing their real person. On a theoretical and logical level, this hiding is probably a form of pride along with fear and an inappropriate need to be accepted. But emotionally, it is not. With women directees who are not in touch with their real selves, the `pride' comparison could be dangerous and could lead to greater interior slavery. Consult Susan Nelson Dunfee, "The Sin of Hiding: A Feminist Critique of Reinhold Niebuhr's Account of the Sin of Pride ," Soundings, vol. 65, no. 3 (1982).

    32. Ignatius' imagery and language for God and Jesus comes from the days of kingly courts and feudal culture as can easily be seen from his use of the title, Divine Majesty. We can replace such language with a more biblical language. The title, Lord, from the Exercises connotes the more biblical title, Lord, as in "Jesus is Lord," as well as the feudal title.

    33. This phrase comes from Puhl's translation.

    34. Theoretically this is received after the prayer upon the Three Degrees of Humility [167]. Does your directee seem to have the kind of character and natural generosity to want to be disposed for this gift?

    35. This implies that, at some point during the Exercises journey, a directee would experience such love for Jesus that he would desire to imitate Jesus even to the point of being ready to embrace the kind of rejection which Jesus experienced [97], [98], [147], [167]. This kind of love is summarized in Prayer Unit 20, in the vocal prayer entitled, entitled, "To Follow Jesus Closely."

    36. A directee must develop the capacity to be in touch with and trust his own feelings if he is going to learn to discern and be dependent upon the Spirit's inner promptings.
     
     

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