Quotes About Reflection

The most grateful pilgrim is the one who has finished the longest journey.

mine what we know about human relationships for ways to understand our relationship with God.

Occasionally during prayer, when I catch myself daydreaming, I say to myself, "You're speaking with God! Pay attention!

examen." Essentially a review of the day, it helps you see where God is active in your daily life.

Then, when you sit in the chair, you're reminded, often in a surprising way, that God is gazing upon you and is with you in your prayer.

God says that Moses will see his back as he passed by him. "Thus," Father Kolvenbach wrote, "looking back over the length and breadth of his life the abbot could see for himself the passage of God." The examen helps you see God in retrospect.

Savoring slows us down. In the examen we don't recall an important experience simply to add it to a list of things that we've seen or done; rather, we savor it as if it were a satisfying meal. We pause to enjoy what has happened. It's a deepening of our gratitude to God, revealing the hidden joys of our days. As Anthony de Mello said, "You sanctify whatever you are grateful for." The

If asked to define Ignatian spirituality, the first thing out of their mouths would most likely be finding God in all things.

Be grateful for your sins. They are carriers of grace.

After "finding God in all things," the second answer you would probably get from those five hypothetical Jesuits is that Ignatian spirituality is about being a contemplative in action.

Is it right for people to critique others for their supposed un-Christian attitudes by themselves being un-Christian?

The third way of understanding the way of Ignatius is as an incarnational spirituality.

Twice a day, or at least once, make your particular examens. Be careful never to omit them. So live as to make more account of your own good conscience than you do of those of others; for he who is not good in regard to himself, how can he be good in regard to others?

Finally, Ignatian spirituality is about freedom and detachment

Detachment, freedom, and a sense of humor are signposts on the road to holiness.

I will recommend focusing on gratitude. This is not to dismiss or cover up the sadness. Rather, when we are sad, we tend to assume that there is no good at all in life. Focusing on gratitude helps to restore our whole vision.

Here was a man, roughly my own age, who had struggled with the same things I did: pride, disappointment, confusion, doubt, sadness, loneliness.

specifically The Seven Storey Mountain and No Man Is An Island that led me to where I am today and helped me become the person I was meant to be.

Some of the best advice from Jesuits on human relationships comes in earthy ways. When John O'Malley was a Jesuit novice, an older priest told him three things to remember when living in community: First, you're not God. Second, this isn't heaven. Third, don't be an ass. Had I followed those guidelines earlier, I could have saved myself years of self-induced heartache.

Aristotle, who believed that we become like the object of our contemplation.

how do I find God?

A Deep Sense of Humor Let me have too deep a sense of humor ever to be proud. Let me know my absurdity before I act absurdly. Let me realize that when I am humble I am most human, most truthful, and most worthy of your serious consideration. —Daniel Lord, S.J. (1888–1955)

There I was, "striving to be something I would never want to be.

We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that "still small" voice. What might it say? Might it ask us to change?