
The following serve as a guideline for planing your Ignatian daily prayer routine.
Your Night Before Preparations: In preparing for tomorrow’s prayer period, read the next day's meditations for understanding. If there is more than one reading for the day, consider the one that resonates with you. (SE# 75)
Your Retreat Mornings: St. Ignatius offers us a framework as we begin a Prayer Period and enter into the mysteries for a personal encounter and discovery of the Word of God. Each Retreat Morning consists of 4 Steps:
Preparatory (Silence, Offertory and Petitionary Prayers)
Meditation (Praying with the Scripture or Spiritual Exercise)
Close (Ending with a personal and/or formal prayer)
Reflection (Making notes in your journal)
Step 1: Preparatory: Begin standing in silence, reflecting on this reality of the gaze of God lovingly looking down upon you. You respond. (SE# 75) This is a time for recollection to dispose of ourselves rightly in reverence and humility and with an Offertory and Petition (what we want and desire from the Lord). Each Preparatory Prayer lasts about a minute. Â
Step 2: Meditation: Read slowly the Scripture or Exercise given and pray attentively using all of your faculties—faith, feelings, interior senses, imagination, and recall—as you pray with each.
Step 3: Close the Prayer: Close your prayer time with a personal prayer (colloquy), speaking to God in a personal way as the Holy Spirit moves you. Then recite a vocal formal prayer (Our Father, Hail Mary, or Glory Be). (SE#54)Â
Step 4: Reflection and Review: At the end of each Prayer Period, note your experiences in your Daily Prayer Journal and ask yourself: What are the insights, feelings, thoughts, images, and memories that came up in me? Savor the graces. Â
Your Retreat Day:Â Recall how the Lord spoke to you during your morning contemplation, and be open to His promptings during the day.Â
Your Retreat Evenings: Pray the Examen and Review your Daily Prayer Journal notes. Consider the graces of your morning prayer time and daytime recollections. Read the next day's Scriptures or Exercise for understanding.
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