Dear Parishioners: on this page you will find short summaries written by other parishioners of some of the best spiritual books. They have written these summaries based on their own spiritual growth and because they have greatly inspired them to journey further with Christ, to grow in holiness, and experience more of God's joy, wisdom, and mercy. Take a moment to read what will be short little helpful reviews and let us know what you think. You can email me your feedback and own experiences at my email [email protected] or you can ask about what may help you in your path towards greater spiritual awareness. Fr. Chance
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Mathew 6: 6-7
Prayer is good for the soul.
Prayer is also our refuge and the path to our salvation.
Prayer is a dialogue without words between us and God and viceversa. Therefore, prayer should be an intimate, humble, and sincere communication between us and our Creator. He is our Father, from whom we got the breath of life… And with the breath of life we also got that Divine spark within us that we call the Soul. Therefore prayer is a quiet conversation between our Soul and God.
Be humble when you pray. Do not try to be eloquent, just be sincere.
Good prayer is simple.
When we talk to God we don’t need fancy words or elaborate statements, we just need sincere thoughts. Good prayers need to be simple and sincere because even before the words are formed God already knows our thoughts and our hearts.
Try not to pray for personal things. When you pray keep always in mind that God, who sees in secret, knows our needs before we ask. He will give us what we need without asking, therefore we should be grateful for what we have. God has given us all we have even without us being aware of it, and without us asking Him. He will continue to provide as He sees fit, hence we don’t need to pray for material things. Avoid this type of prayer whenever you can. In prayer always be grateful and most of all be content with what you have.
Always pray for others, and finish your prayer session with Thy will be done. This short fragment, derived from “the perfect prayer” was given to the Apostles by Christ himself when they asked him “teach us how to pray”. (Mathew 6: 9-13).
Thy will be done also reflects the attitude we need to have when we pray. Whenever we seek an audience with God we need to attend with a spiritual attitude. We have to meet him with humility and an open heart that is willing to be obedient. Thy will be done is an act of Faith by which we are consenting and accepting our Father’s will as Jesus did at the Mount of Olives.
Thy will be done summarizes the essence of Christian life and hence the essence of prayer. The Our Father, within which we find this short phrase, is the alpha and the omega of all prayers.
Pray unselfishly and always with gratitude for all the blessings you have received. Parents, home, and education should always be on the top of the list. When you pray, always offer a prayer of thanksgiving. He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me (Psalm 50: 23).
Thanksgiving and gratefulness are traits of a just soul. Unfortunately, gratitude is often diluted with the bustle and hustle of daily life. Yet, every day we should be thankful for waking up, for every smile we encounter along the way, and for being able to end another day.
When you pray, dedicate your time faithfully to the time of prayer; don’t let yourself be distracted by trivial things or trivial sayings. To pray faithfully to God we have to leave outside of our hearts and minds “the world of distraction”. Leaving the outside world out of our prayer room will allow us to enjoy our true intimacy with our Creator. Let the silence of the chapel of your mind encompass only the intimacy of your Soul with God.
Prayer is nothing more than Hope and Faith transfigured into our communion with God. It is this transfiguration that precedes the forgiveness of sins, therefore, prayer brings Peace to the Soul.
If you pray like this you will achieve a better life, and in the end you will be content. In this life don’t strive to be rich or famous, strive to be “in peace” and “at peace” with God. That peace is Grace, which in turn will bring you true Joy and Happiness.
God gives us great freedom in our ability to communicate with him. Say something sincere and beautiful to Him every day… Pray.
I, the Lord, alone search the heart and test the mind. (Jeremiah 17:10)
Searching the heart and testing the mind is what discernment is all about.
Discernment is a process during which we distinguish right from wrong as well as good from evil. This process can be at an organic (psychological) level, an intelectual (moral) level, a spiritual (religious) level, or all three. The purpose of such discernment is to be aware and to understand these “stirrings” of the heart in order to be able to avoid and/or reject temptation.
The best study of these discernments was written by a Spanish Army officer convalescing from a cannon ball injury, that wounded his left leg and fractured his right one, during the French siege of Pamplona. So courageous was his participation in the defense of the city that the French tended to his wounds and rather than taking him prisoner they transported him to his natal city of Loyola.
Born Iñigo Lopez de Oñaz, Ignatius of Loyola wrote Discernment of Spirits after having an intense spiritual experience while recovering from his war injury in 1522.
The Sixteenth Century was a time when heretics were still burnt at the stake, medicine was in its infancy, and psychiatry didn’t exist. Therefore this religious/philosophical study was Centuries ahead of its time.
During the time of St. Ignatius, following Aristotelian tradition, the heart rather than the brain, was considered the center of emotions. Hence, St. Ignatius’ descriptions of “the currents of the heart” (when referring to human emotions) are related to this medical and philosophical misconception.
St. Ignatius’ Discernment of Spirits is a guide for those who search for mature spirituality. His writings on the subject have been praised over the following centuries.
Unfortunately during the Twentieth Century, after the women’s liberation movement, and the Twenty First Century climate of hypocritical political correctness the text has been criticized for being “misogynistic”.
From the medical point of view one could argue that the heart is just a pump to distribute blood to the rest of the body; therefore the heart is devoid of feelings and physiologically has no emotions. From the medical point of view we also know that the brain is the center for all emotions, while on the other hand, from the psychiatric viewpoint, one could argue that St. Ignatius is describing manic depressive disorders in his text: Periods of elation (which he calls consolation) followed by periods of depression (which he calls desolation).
Such criticisms miss the fundamental point of the text. One can’t criticize something written in the Sixteenth Century with a 20th or 21st century mentality. One has to read such a text in the context of the time during which it was written. Anything else is an exercise in futility.
The purpose of The Discernment of Spirits, as written by St. Ignatius, has nothing to do with sociology, politics, or medicine. His writings are of a purely philosophical and deeply religious nature.
The rules in The Discernment of Spirits were, and still are, aimed to guide persons seeking a higher degree of spirituality. The purpose of St. Ignatius’ writings is to direct a person seeking a closer relationship with God from a state of spiritual infancy to a state of spiritual maturity.
In my opinion there is nothing wrong with a state of spiritual infancy as Jesus himself
praised the innocence of children when he said who ever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child shall not enter it.
For some persons the state of spiritual infancy might be the correct one, but for those individuals aspiring for a better understanding of spirituality, related to the “stirrings of the heart”, Discernment of Spirits is an excellent guide.
The “spirits” that St. Ignatius is referring-to are not ghosts, little horned devils, or winged angels sitting on our shoulders or scurrying around the rooms we are in. St. Ignatius is rather talking about our thoughts and actions influenced by our religious or moral beliefs, as well as that primordial negative influence we call temptation.
Discernment of Spirits is a set of fourteen rules to follow when temptation enters, or attempts to enter, into our lives. As St. Mark said, Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Discernment of Spirits can also provide guidance not only when we are in profound meditation or praying, but also in every day life when confronted with more mundane choices.
For a pragmatic use, in every day life, Ignatian philosophy can be sumarized as:
The purpose of Rule 9 is to help us understand that consolation does not come from us: It comes from God. This understanding should humble us, so that we don’t attribute to ourselves the gift of God that comes with the state of consolation. The main purpose of Rule 9 is to make us aware that we should not build a nest in something belonging to another.
If we understand the rules so far, we should prepare during the times of consolation for the periods of desolation which inevitably will follow (Tenth Rule). During consolation we should take new strength for the times of desolation.
The alternating nature of consolation and desolation are periods in our spiritual journey during which we must humble ourselves (during consolation) acknowledging the grace of God bestowed on us. We should also take heart during the period of consolation and prepare for the time of desolation.
Rule 10 should allow us to acknowledge that during such time of desolation we still have sufficient grace within us to resist the desolation that will follow sometime in the future (Eleventh Rule).
Temptation corrupts our thoughts and rationalizes what we intrinsically know to be wrong. Temptation weakens us and makes us loose heart. Here is where St. Ignatius has ignited the criticism of the feminists for he compares the enemy to females, being weak when faced with strength and strong when faced with weakness (Rule 12). This is not a misogynistic statement. It is a statement of fact. Weak women (as well as weak men, children, and the elderly) can be abused because they don't oppose the abuser. On the other hand men know very well that there is no wrath worse than that of a woman scorned where the female of the species becomes the aggressor, mean, and vengeful. Most men that have gone through a divorce (especially if it is due to an adulterous relationship) know that.
St Ignatius therefore recommends in Rule 12 to face the enemystrongly, and to do what is diametrically opposed to the whispers of temptation.
In a similar way temptation enters our thoughts as a false lover in wishing to remain secret and not be revealed (Thirteenth Rule). It is the secret part of the relationship that should raise the red flag.
Secrecy usually implies wrongdoing, and although Jesus recommends to pray in secret ( Mathew 6: 6) most other things done surrounded by secrecy are bad, or with sinful intent. Malice and deceit are also coverups for thoughts that are not conductive to good, pure, chaste, or honorable acts. Hence secrecy, malice, and deceit should be forcefully rejected as the false lover should be.
Finally Temptation can enter our thoughts as a leader whose intent is conquering and robing, and as such it enters our consciousness through our moral, psychological, or religious weakest point (Fourteenth Rule). Therefore we need to be aware of this situation to reinforce our spiritual weaknesses and resist forcefully when our thoughts start wandering-off in the wrong direction. We have to avoid the rationalization of any thoughts that deviate from what our soul recognizes as inappropriate or wrong.
These fourteen rules were written by St. Ignatius to help us distinguish (Discernment) between good and bad thoughts (Spirits) before they become actions. The Rules are intended to reject temptation and to fortify our moral and spiritual landscape.
By following these 14 rules we will be able to follow our own spiritual path, and at the same time grow spiritually, with the goal of getting closer to God who is always within us.
And as Jesus said: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mathew 5: 3).
Salud, Paz y Bien,
Roberto Masferrer