worship Sunday--Daily Examen

The goal of our lives is to live with God forever.

  God, who loves us, gave us life.

  Our own response of love allows God's life to flow into us without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts of God,

  presented to us so that we can know God more easily

  and make a return of love more readily.

As a result, we apreciate and use all of these gifts of God

  insofar as they help us develop as loving persons.

But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,

  they displace God and so hinder our growth toward our goal.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance

  before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice 

  and are not bound by some obligation.

We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, 

  wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one.

For everything has the potential of calling forth in us

  a deeper response to our life in God.

Our only desire and our one choice should be this:

I want and I choose what better leads to the deepening of God's life in me.

St. Ignatius, from the Spiritual Exercises

We opened worship with this last night, and used several of St. Ignatius' prayers. The central piece was talking about the Daily Examen and guiding the group through the practice. I think it went well (I'd love to hear feedback from our community).

If you're not familiar with it, the Daily Examen is a way of examining or assessing one's life before God in an attitude of prayer. It involves reviewing how God has been present to us or at work with us through the day, then noting our response--reviewing our thoughts, feelings, and actions in relation to God's presence. You can find more detail here.

Doing this has been wonderful for me, really helping me connect with God, especially when life is so busy.

I had one of those great embarrassing moments tonight, when I forgot the words while we were praying the Lord's Prayer...(I forgot "kingdom" where it says "yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.") I got flustered and probably repeated "power" 2 or 3 times, which gave great ammo to a couple of my friends.

But it was a great evening of prayer and fellowship!