Lecturer Talk 5 – On the Examen
Brothers, how did everyone do with the challenge from the
last time? [It was to attend the March
for Life or at least pray and sacrifice on the anniversary for the building of
the a culture of life]. Today
we are going to return to the topic we reflected on two months ago. If you remember my sequence of talks, I started
out talking about what is the essence of the Gospel message and what does it
mean to have a relationship with Christ, then I moved on to the importance of
prayer and one way to pray with Scripture, next I spoke about Advent and last
month about being pro-life. I want to
first of all reiterate the importance of prayer. Brothers, you might be used to having the
identifiers of being a Catholic as I go to Mass, I go to the Knights meeting, I
serve as an usher, whatever, but as I spoke about in my first talk the essence
of our faith is to be in an intimate, personal relationship with God that
overflows to the love of our neighbor.
Now here is a question for all of you, how do we strength relationships? (This is not a rhetorical question). We spend time together. We will be judged by our love first, not just
our activities. Prayer foster love, it
is spending time with the one we should love.
If we say that we are Knights of Columbus and disciples of Christ we
need to be spending time every day,
in personal prayer. Prayer needs to
become an essential part of our day!
Also I want to introduce a concept that I am going to come back to again
and again.
This is the concept of intentional discipleship. Our supreme chaplain, Archbishop William Lori
put it very well: “To be an intentional disciple is to make an act of faith
that is not merely notional but is rather an entrustment of our whole lives to
Christ our God. It is an act of faith
that shapes one's whole existence because it leads again and again to an
encounter with Christ” (“Chaplain’s Report” 2014 January, p. 2). In other words rather than being one who is
just someone who goes through the motions of their faith or is busy with
Catholic activities, one needs to be consciously following Christ in the midst
of the Church and being obedient to all Her teachings. He also states "It has to do with
closing the gap between the rich and beautiful teaching in Scripture, in
tradition, in the liturgy - articulated in our day as never before - and the
lived experience of so many Catholic Christians, which barely scratches the
surface. What is lacking is not only an
adequate knowledge of these riches, but a conscious decision, inspired by the
Holy Spirit, to follow Christ. . .” (“Chaplain’s Report” 2014 January, p. 2). So while there is a crisis today of a lack of
adequate understanding about our faith, in other words catechesis, there first
is a crisis of evangelization, meaning people understanding the Gospel message
and responding. Again to put it simply
this message is God desires a relationship with you, the relationship is ruined
by my own sin, it is renewed by Christ’s life, death and resurrection and it requires
a response in order “to trust Him and follow Him in a new way” (FOCUS October
2013). Three questions to ask oneself
about one’s own discipleship is “do I understand what it means to be in
relationship with Christ,” “do I know the cost of discipleship” and “do I know
and strive to practice the habits of being a disciple?” If you recognize that you are not an intentional
disciple, be not afraid! The first step
is recognizing in humility where you are at, desiring to intentionally follow
Christ and asking for the grace to say “yes” in stepping forward to become an
intentional disciple. Then one needs to
try to live, by God’s grace, the life where Christ is truly the center and Lord
of your life. One of the habits of being
an intentional disciple is daily prayer.
Not just prayer when one feels like it, on Sunday or when one is in
trouble. It is a spiritual discipline
that strengthens our ability to love God and our neighbor. The fruit of prayer is a deeper hunger to
know God, not just know about Him as well as joy and peace and who does not
want those (Lee 21 January 2014)? It is
hard to get started just like getting into a regiment with exercising, but it gets
easier over time. The type of prayer that
I want to introduce to you tonight is the prayer of Examen.
It is not the same thing as an examination of conscience
which we do before confession, but it is similar. It is a method of prayer that comes from St.
Ignatius of Loyola who is the founder of the Jesuits to become more aware of
God’s presence in our lives and understand how to respond to His presence. To make sure you are paying attention who do
we know who is a famous Jesuit? The
Pope. There are basically five steps to
this prayer which I have included on the handout that I will be giving to you. The first is to look back on your whole day
or if you are doing it mid-day, half your day, with gratitude (Brotherhood of
Hope 2005). How often do you or I truly
thank God for all the graces in our lives, or do we just take them for granted? Also having a grateful heart leads to joy and
being positive because we recognize our blessings and how these are all gifts
that show the goodness of our Heavenly Father.
This prayer also allows us to be thankful for the ordinary such as last
week I helped an acquaintance from our parish find a lawyer as he was facing
drunk driving charges and through the Examen I was able to thank God that I was
able to be Christ to someone who is at the margins of the Church. The second step is to ask for the Holy Spirit’s
help that He would help you to see what He wants you to see and would help to
guide this time of prayer (Brotherhood of Hope 2005).
The third step is understanding where we pick out a few
important parts of our day and truly reflect on what was happening or not
happening in our hearts (Ivany n.d.). An
example could be getting drunk. Why did
you get drunk? What thoughts were going
on in your head that lead you down that road?
Was their emptiness in your life?
Did you fall into peer pressure? These
thoughts which lead to sin fall under St. Ignatius’ concept of spiritual
desolations when for example we have desire for base things (lust, overeating,
overdrinking, foul humor), slothfulness, dryness, sadness, separation from God
or thoughts that lead away from God (Ignatius, 317 as cited in Brotherhood of
Hope 2005). When we gets these thoughts
or feelings we need to reject them right away and cling to God’s personal love
for us even when we might not feel it. The
Examen is not just about what we did wrong, but also where did we see God
speaking to us through other people, events, places? Through this prayer we are able to receive
the lessons that the Lord desires to teach us through the ordinary events of our
day (Ivany 18 February 2012). Also harkening
back to the concept of intentional discipleship, one sign of being an
intentional disciple is through starting to see how Christ is working in one’s
daily life and how He is inviting one to move in a direction (i.e. die to
oneself more, get more involved at the parish, trust God more). Otherwise we have this dichotomy between we
go to church on Sunday and then the rest of the week we live our life without
reference to Christ.
Through our day we might sense spiritual consolations that
the Lord has given us such as increased love for God, hope, charity towards
others, sorrow for sin, interior joy, movement towards God, peace and a sense
of hopeful purpose (Ignatius 316 as cited in Brotherhood of Hope 2005). We need to receive these consolations with
thanksgiving, acknowledge that they are gifts from Him and ask that the Lord
might continue to allow us to continue to witness to Him no matter what the
circumstance (Brotherhood of Hope 2005).
For example last week, I could see through the fact that almost every
day the plans I had put forth got ruined, I sensed that the Lord was teaching
me to be detached from my plans. By
God’s grace, even though my plans were constantly being changed, I was able to
be at peace with that, which is a spiritual consolation, something that leads
me towards God. The final step is
action. If we see that we messed up we
need to relive this situation again from the perspective of God’s love where
the emptiness that we may have felt is filled with His love. Then the next time we face a similar
situation we will have acted it out again in our mind (Ivany 18 February
2012). Overtime we will come to see
patterns in our behavior and ways that the Lord might be speaking to us(Brotherhood
of Hope 2005).
In closing brothers, I know that I am challenging you each
time I speak to think, pray and act differently which you are probably not used
to. I am doing this because I care for
you as my brothers in Christ and want to challenge you to not be complacent or
stagnant rather continue to move forward to being the saint that the Lord
desires you to be. I want to be like
your spiritual coach that needs to push the players to help them grow. I want to issue you three challenges:
-one
is to try out this form of prayer at least once a week over the next month, may
be more if you find it fruitful
-second
is to invite you to the upcoming Communion breakfast on March 2 sponsored by
the Bergen Federation with the coadjutor Archbisho Bernard Hebda. He is the coadjutor meaning that he helps out
the current archbishop, Myers, and eventually will succeed him.
-third
is to invite you to the men’s conference.
It is the day of our St. Patrick’s Day dance, but it will be over before
it begins. I understand if you are
already dedicated to helping set that up and can’t come, but wanted to propose
it as an option. I know that when I went
two years ago I thought it was wonderful.
It is an opportunity more deeply encounter Christ, be with other men of
faith and learn more about our faith.
Vivat Jesus!
Works Cited
FOCUS.
(October 2013). “Fruits of Fall Outreach: Stories from FOCUS Campuses.” Retrieved
from http://www.focus.org/news-for-you/october-2013/fruits-of-fall-outreach.html
Brotherhood of Hope. (2005). “Prayer of Examen.”
Ivany,
M. (n.d.) “Handout on the Examen.”
Ivany,
M. (18 February 2012). “iPray
Conference: Father Mark Ivany.”
Retrieved from
Lee,
N. (21 January 2014). “On the Joy of the Gospel.” Delivered at The George
Washington
University Newman Center, Washington, D.C.
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