There were a lot of things I didn’t know when I started my journey with the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. I didn’t know that death would become my companion on the journey; that my father’s dying would correspond with Jesus’ journey to the cross. I didn’t know that Jesus would allow me to see sin through His eyes so that I could grieve my father’s dying deeply – my dad was not what anyone would describe as a good father. I did not expect that Jesus Himself would walk me to my own tomb.

All I knew about the Ignatian Exercises was that I should probably do them at some point because they sounded “holy”, and they were about Jesus. But the little I heard seemed like too much at the time.  I set the idea on the back shelf to think about someday in the future.  A few years later, still not knowing much about the Exercises, I felt the interior pull of the Spirit to explore them and told my spiritual director I wanted to give them a try (the only other thing I knew for sure about the Exercises was that you did them with a spiritual director).

My spiritual director prepared me for the mechanics of it: set aside an hour a day to pray with provided scriptures, follow the church calendar of being with Jesus’ birth at Christmas, walk with Him in His ministry, companion Him in His death through the passion, and rejoice with the disciples at His resurrection on Easter.  She encouraged me to enter the scripture as if I could step into the very events and experience what it might have been like to be there.

When I started the Exercises, it quickly became clear to me that my beginning this journey wasn’t really my idea. All along, Jesus Himself had been leading me on the path. I sensed that this journey was meant for my jubilee, but I had no foresight that before freedom, bondage must be broken. Before resurrection life, there would be death. Many things that I knew about Jesus intellectually became a lived reality. While my spiritual director companioned me, Jesus alone knew beforehand what the year would hold for me. He met me personally, to take me on a journey to know Him more deeply so I could trust Him more completely. In this journey, I found Jesus to be more fully alive and real than I had ever experienced. Since then, I have learned that many people have a similar encounter of being intimately met by Jesus.

The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are about Jesus’ love. Jesus meets you where you are, and He shows you who He really is. If this is a journey you are interested in, the online cohort will begin on Sept 26. There are 9 group meetings, 9 individual meetings with me, 9 videos to watch, and daily prayer material for the 9-month prayer pilgrimage. Cost $1485 (sliding scale is available if this is an excessive financial burden). Visit https://www.thesoulcareplace.com/ignatian-exercises for all the details and to connect with me about joining the cohort. Or email me at info@thesoulcareplace.com.