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Catch, Cradle and Cherish

St. Ignatius was a master of human psychology long before we even knew the term.

A fCourtesy of Jesuit Sources.avourite spiritual exercise of his is what has come to be known as the Examen.  It is a simple, but powerful, daily prayer exercise and goes something like this.

At the end of your day, give yourselves about 15 minutes to look over your day with the eyes of faith.   Begin with a short prayer of thanksgiving for your life, for the day that has passed.  Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you with the mystery and grace of the day. 

Ask Jesus Christ to take you by the hand and to show you your day in His light.  What we see and what God sees may be two different things. What we hear and what God hears are often not the same.

You may let Jesus Christ walk with you from the beginning of the day to your present moment in a chronological meander.  Or you may find Christ inviting you to specific moments or feelings or thoughts from the day.

As you walk with Christ, He may call you to rest with a particular moment of the day.  You may find yourself lingering, like hand in hand with a lover on a soft, sultry, summer evening.  Or you may find yourself troubled, saddened, anxious, jolted by something from the day.   These are special moments.  This is where Christ wishes to meet you.  Catch those moments and hold them.

Rest with Christ as you would in the arms of a lover.  Feel his presence, his warmth, his strength.  Relish the moments of the day – the smell of fresh brewing coffee, the sprinkle of rain on your garden flowers, an experience of forgiveness, wonder, awe.  Savour these moments, taste them, breath them as the grace of God.  Christ is calling you at that very moment to have eyes that see and ears that hear.

Christ may also invite you into the Garden of Gethsemane.  Remember that gardens are also the havens of lovers, tucked away for lovers' delight.  But this garden has it pain and fear and sorrow.  But your will be done.  Here Christ may wish to gift you with grace that comes from tears and sorrow.  You may remember those times of the day when you refused the gift of the other, when you turned in on your fearful self and shut out the world. Courtesy of Jesuit Sources.

But remember, Christ is revealing these moments not to punish or repudiate but to invite to child-like abandon into his arms.  These moments reveal our insatiable need for God and for others.  We turn to God in sorrow and abandon, take his hand and move forward.

A friend of mine once described the Examen as a way to catch, cradle and cherish the day that has gone before us.  To cradle and to cherish our day with Jesus Christ at our side.  What marvellous grace.  Marvellous because we are no longer left to our own feeble pride or fear.  We have a lover at our side, holding us closely, whispering to us the marvels of our day. 

Someone once defined history as one damn thing after another.  Don't let your days be like that.  Call on Christ at the end of your day.  Let Him show you who you are.  Let the Lover show you as the beloved.