A Simple Practice to Orient Your Life in Christ (Especially in Lent)
Josh Clemence, Unsplash
“THE GRACE THAT I ASK FOR”
A few years ago, Rachel and I participated in a 12-week version of the Ignatian Exercises as part of our spiritual direction training. The exercises, called "A Retreat in Everyday Life," is a series of scriptural meditations, prayer, the examen, and processing with a spiritual director. The creation and significance of the Ignatian Exercises is a post for a different time (although we have highlighted the prayer of Examen in previous posts). There are four themes (five if you count the important preparation time) which you focus on throughout the 12 weeks:
Preparation: God's Love
Theme 1: Our sinfulness and need for Jesus
Theme 2: The life and impact of Jesus
Theme 3: Encountering and following Jesus in his final days and hours
Theme 4: Knowing and following the resurrected Christ
Both Rachel and I were moved by engaging in this everyday retreat, where for 45 minutes every morning we prayed through Gospel scenes and practiced the Examen. As part of this experience, each day we would pray and reflect on what was called "The grace I ask for." These were short, one-sentence requests that were connected with the themes. "The grace that I ask for" stayed the same for a full week.
I was struck not only by the simplicity of these graces, but also by their power. As I prayed with the same simple theme each day for a week, it would sink deeper and deeper into my heart and would become a prayer throughout the day. In a way, these graces functioned as breath prayers. As they sank into my heart, they gave focus to my week. They helped me continually turn my gaze back toward our Lord Jesus, and drew me closer to him.
This Lent, I incorporated this practice back into my rule of life for this season. I begin each day meditating on the grace that I ask for this week. For each of the six weeks of Lent, I mostly wrote my own graces and have been praying through them. The experience has been just as rich as when I did this a few years ago. I chew on these little phrases throughout my day and offer them up to God in prayer.
This practice can be prayed in any season, and you can match the grace that you ask to the seasons of the church calendar. For example, during Pentecost your grace could be, "Lord I ask for the grace to know it means to walk in step with Your Spirit." or during Advent, "Lord, I ask for the grace to know how to wait."
Perhaps you want try this yourself, and it is quite easy to do so!
Choose some of the graces below, pull some from scripture, or write your own.
Begin each day meditating on this simple grace you ask from the Lord.
Return to it throughout the day and allow the "grace I ask" to reorient your heart back on Jesus.
Stick with the same grace for a period of time (I recommend at least a week).
This is a great practice to incorporate into your seasonal rule of life. It takes very little time or energy and you can practice it on the go, at work and really throughout any other activity as a way to connect with God.
EXAMPLES OF “GRACES THAT I ASK”
My graces that I ask for this Lent:
Week 1: I ask for the grace to feel your hope (Rom. 15:13)
Week 2: Lord, I want to feel your contentment (Phil. 4:11-13)
Week 3: Lord, I want to feel bold in trusting you (prov. 3:5-6)
Week 4: Lord, grant me the grace to feel that sense of life to the full (John 10:10)
Week 5: Lord, I want to feel deeper intimacy with you (1 Cor 2:9-10)
Week 6 (Holy): I beg to feel sorrow with Jesus in His suffering, and to know how it matters to me.*
*Taken from Finding Christ in the World
Others I have used:
Lord, help me to be refreshed in you. (Psalm 23:3)
Lord, I want to feel your love this weekend.
Here are the Graces we prayed through from Finding Christ in the World: A Twelve Week Ignatian Retreat in Everyday Life:
Week 1: I want to accept maturely that God is always caring for me, all my life long
Week 2: I want to learn how to feel God’s presence with me all through the day
Week 3: I want to experience being chosen by Christ and to accept maturely His choosing wholeheartedly
Week 4: I want all my desiring to seek holiness. I ask God to shape the saint that is me
Week 5: I ask God to reveal to me how He is grieved by what people are doing to one another and ourselves
Week 6: I ask God to know clearly where I sin, name it, and ask for His loving forgiveness and mercy
Week 7: I ask to appreciate how God has saved us by sending the Son of God in our Flesh
Week 8: I ask to know Jesus more clearly and be like Him more nearly
Week 9: I beg to feel sorrow with Jesus in His suffering, and to know how it matters to me
Week 10: I beg to find Jesus Christ in my life in family and the church
Week 11: I ask for gratitude that I have all the gifts I need for a holy and joy filled life in Christ, now and in heaven
Week 12: I pray to be grateful that I have all the gifts I need for a holy and joy filled life in Christ now, and in heaven.
Tetlow, Joseph A, S.J. and Ackels, Carol Atwell, Finding Christ in the World: A Twelve Week Ignatian Retreat in Everyday Life. (Jesuit Conference Inc. Chestnut Hill, MA, 2017)
Your turn! If you try this practice, share one or two of your own graces in the comments section -- we'd love to know how you're using this in your own prayer life!