This program consists of:

1. Five weekly meetings of an hour to an hour and a half, during which there will be some faith sharing, for those willing to share, about the prayer experiences during the weeks of the program,  the presentation of a topic in Ignatian prayer and spirituality and the distribution of prayer materials.
• The prayer material will introduce you to the themes of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
   
2. 2. Your personal commitment to pray 5 to 6 days a week for four weeks. We will introduce you to the following format for prayer: Bringing yourself into God’s presence and praying with scripture or other prayer material for 15-20 minutes; reflecting on your prayer experience and writing a few sentences in a journal about what the prayer experience was like for 8-10 minutes; and praying the Examen for 5 to10 minutes at the end of each day. The Examen is a prayer for reviewing your day so as to discover where and when and how God was present in your day. Your total daily time commitment to prayer is 40-50 minutes.

Robert Giugliano, Ph.D., a spiritual director and adjunct faculty member at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, will lead this program along with trained spiritual directors Phyllis Petito and Janet Moisewicz and other members of Mount Manresa’s Spirituality Team.

Format and Topics for the Five Meetings

First Meeting –  Overview of the Program and Prayer as Personal Relationship with God

1. Opening with a prayer ritual: music, candle lighting and prayer to the Holy Spirit
2. Group leaders introduce themselves and say something about their hopes and desires for the program.
3. Each participant is invited to introduce him/herself and say something about what he/she desires and hopes to get out of the retreat/program.
4. Brief overview of the program: Prayer, journaling, the Examen and weekly meetings
5. Prayer as Personal Relationship with God 
• Spiritual Intimacy – Always being held in the love and compassion of God
• Personal relationships mean spending time with one another
• Informal and formal prayer
• Deciding on a time, place and length of time for prayer periods
• Beginning formal prayer periods
• Praying meditatively/contemplatively during the prayer period itself
• What does it mean to pay attention to my experience during prayer?
• What does it mean when it is said that God shows up in my experience?
• Ending a formal prayer period
• Reviewing and reflecting on your prayer
• Journaling
6. Journaling
• Journaling is simply taking the time to write a few sentences about your prayer experience. What was it like for you to pray in this formal way? As you prayed what came up for you in terms of thoughts and feelings? How was God with you during your prayer? How did you feel about God during your prayer?
• Your first journal entry, which we suggest you make after this gathering and before you begin the prayer exercises, is to simply write a few sentences about how you are as you begin the retreat: the feelings, thoughts, and desires of your heart as you enter into the prayer of these four weeks. Your entry needs to be only as long as it takes you to write about how you are.
• Two purposes of journaling are to deepen your prayer experience and to be able to review your prayer or felt relationship with God over time.
7. The Examen
• The purpose of the Examen is to look over your day so as to discover where, when and how you and God were with each other that day. Where did God show up and how did you respond? Were you less than/more than loving with others? How were you with yourself?
• The Examen is a simple, five-step prayer that takes 5 to 10 minutes.
• Become aware that you are in God’s presence and take a few moments to quiet your body, mind and spirit
• Thank God for the blessings of the day. What were the gifts in your day and how were you a gift to someone?
• Review your day from the time you awoke to the moment you are doing the Examen. Be attentive to your felt sense of being drawn by God, of God’s presence during the day and your response. Be particularly attentive to your feelings and changes in mood and the people you had contact with during the day.
• Talk with God about your day and, if applicable, ask for forgiveness for those times when you sensed you were less than loving.
• Looking forward to the next day and those people you will meet and activities you will engage in, ask God for light and guidance.
• End with an Our Father
8. The theme for the first week of prayer will be presented and briefly discussed: We are God’s children – created in and by Love but trapped in sin and nevertheless always held in God’s compassionate love and mercy. Handouts distributed. End with a prayer.

Second Meeting – Ways of Praying with Scripture

1. Opening with a prayer ritual: music, candle lighting and prayer.
2. The process of faith sharing will be presented and the group will be invited to share prayer experiences from Week 1 prayer.
3. When the sharing ends the group leaders may share some of their experiences and/or summarize the major themes that came from the sharing.
4. The group is invited to raise questions or issues for clarification.
5. The topic of the presentation will be on ways of praying with scripture: lectio, meditation and Ignatian contemplation. This presentation will be geared toward preparing the retreatants for the next three weeks of the retreat, which will involve praying with scripture.
6. The theme for the second week of prayer will be presented and briefly discussed: God’s merciful and self-less Love is made manifest in the person of Jesus, Emmanuel – God with us, the Word made flesh. Handouts will be distributed. End with a prayer.

Third Meeting – Finding God in Our Experience

1. Opening with a prayer ritual: music, candle lighting and prayer.
2. The group is invited to share their prayer experiences from Week 2 prayer.
3. When the sharing ends the group leaders may share some of their experiences and/or summarize the major themes that came from the sharing.
4. The group is invited to raise questions or issues for clarification.
5. The topic of the presentation this week will be on the God who desires us and communicates with us through our experience. We will discuss the contemplative attitude in day-to-day life.
6. The theme and prayer material for the third week will be presented and briefly discussed: The Passion and Death of Jesus. Handouts will be distributed. End with a prayer.

Fourth Meeting – The Spiritual Movements of Consolation and Desolation

1. Opening with a prayer ritual: music, candle lighting and prayer.
2. The group is invited to share their prayer experiences from Week 3 prayer.
3. When the sharing ends the group leaders may share some of their experiences and/or summarize the major themes that came from the sharing.
4. The group is invited to raise questions or issues for clarification.
5. The topic of the presentation will be an introduction to discernment of the spiritual movements of consolation and desolation. We will look at these experiences,  in prayer and out of prayer, that move us toward God and away from God.
6. The theme and prayer material for the fourth will be presented and briefly discussed: The Resurrection – A transforming Love. Handouts will be distributed. End with a prayer.

Fifth and Final Meeting – Review of the Retreat Experience and Going Further in God’s Love

1. Opening with a prayer ritual: music, candle lighting and prayer.
2. The group is invited to share their prayer experiences from Week 4 prayer and then will be invited to share an overview of their prayer experiences over the four weeks.
3. After the sharing the group leaders may share and summarize the themes that have emerged in the retreatants’ prayer.
4. The group is invited to raise questions or issues for discussion.
5. The topic of the presentation will be an overview of the movements of the four weeks and an introduction to continuing the graces of the retreat by praying the Contemplation Toward Love. A handout of resources for prayer in the Ignatian tradition will be distributed. The group will be asked to complete a brief evaluation/feedback form.
6. The program will end with prayer and a blessing.

Themes and Prayer Material for Each Week

Week 1 – We, God’s children, are created in Love but trapped by sin and yet always held in God’s compassionate love and mercy.

1. God is the source of all that is, the creator of the universe and is always creating me – desiring that I have the fullness of life and an ordered relationship with all creation. 
2. There are forces in the world that I am subject to – forces of love, goodness and life as well as forces of sin and death. I can see these larger forces at play in the world just by reading the newspaper and watching the evening news.
3. I know these forces from my own life history as well as in my own daily experience. The interior movements of my own experience: there are things I do, say, think and feel that move me away from God and others. There are things I do, say, think and feel that move me toward God and others.
• There are experiences I have with others that are expression of God’s love and fill me with gratitude. There are times I am hurt and victimized by others and these times leave me angry, depressed and even hateful and seeking revenge.
4. God knows of my struggle and all of the particular ways I move away from God. 
5. God knows especially of my love for God and desire to be close to God knowing in my heart how much God desires me.
6. God, the gracious and compassionate One, knows that I cannot deal with, cope with, handle these forces on my own or by myself. God knows that I will never completely overcome the forces of sin and death in this life.
7. God nevertheless does not hold anything against me but rather holds me in God’s compassionate love and mercy. And hears our cries for help

Grace: To ask for what I desire – shame and confusion at so much sin in the world in the face of God’s goodness.  And sorrow for my sins and faults.

[23] Principle and Foundation
Psalm 104 The Wonders of Creation
Psalm 139: 1-18, 23-24 God Knows Us As We Are
Ephesians 2: 1-10 We are God’s handiwork created to lead a life of good deeds
Romans 7: 14-25 Trapped by sin
Psalm 130 Our Plea for Help

Week 2 – God’s merciful and self-less Love is made manifest in the person of Jesus, Emmanuel – God with us, the Word made flesh.

From the Spiritual Exercises [102 – 108]

The Three Divine Person look down upon the while expanse or circuit of all the earth, filled with human beings in such great diversity in dress and manner of acting. Some are white, some black; some at peace, and some at war; some weeping, some laughing; some well, some sick; some coming in to the world, and some dying; etc. … I will hear what the Divine Persons say, that is, “Let us work for the redemption of the human race.”… And I will consider what the Divine Person do, namely, work the most holy Incarnation … and how Our Lady humbles herself.

Grace: To ask for what I desire – a deep-felt knowledge of God become human for me so that I might love Jesus more and follow Him more closely.

Luke 1: 26 – 38 Annunciation and Luke 2: 1-7 Nativity
Mark 1: 9-15 Baptism, Temptation in the Desert, Announces the Kingdom
Matthew 5: 1-11 The Beatitudes
Matthew 12: 1-14 Confrontation with the Pharisees
Matthew 14: 13-21 Jesus Feeds Five Thousand
John 14: 8-14 Philip said to him, “Lord show us the Father…”

Week 3 The Passion and Death of Jesus

Having gotten to know Jesus through prayer with the scriptures and now finding ourselves drawn closer to him and loving him, we come face to face with Him and accompany Him as He loves us into His death. His project of bringing the compassionate mercy of the Father into the world ended in complete failure by worldly standards. He was rejected by his brothers and sisters in the faith; condemned by civil authority; and abandoned by those he truly loved and called friends. Can we be present to His suffering and death? Can we enter the sacred space of compassion for the suffering and pain of the completely Innocent One, Jesus, who endures this for me?

Grace: To ask for what I desire – sorrow with Jesus in sorrow, tears and deep grief because of the great affliction that Jesus endures for me.

John 13: 1-17 The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet
Matthew 26: 17-30 The Last Supper
Matthew 26: 31-46 The Agony in the Garden
Mark 14: 43-50 The Arrest and Luke 22: 54-62 Denial by Peter
John 18: 33-19:16 Jesus Trial by Pilot and John 19: 17-30 Crucifixion and Death
John 19: 31-42 Jesus is Pierced by a Spear, Taken Down from the Cross and Buried

Week 4 The Resurrection – A Transforming Love

God’s merciful love and compassion is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. It is true and real: Jesus rose from the dead and is the first born of the dead.  Jesus overcame sin and death through His complete surrender in weakness and emptiness to where his life and love for us took him, namely, to the cross. Now He is with us till the end of time. The focus of our prayer is the divinity of Jesus which now manifests itself in the Resurrection in its most true and sacred effects [223]. We should also consider how Christ is consoler and compare it to the way friends console each other [224]. Jesus gives those He loves whatever they need not to doubt but rather to believe in the mystery of His resurrection.

Grace: To ask for what I desire – a deep interior joy, to be glad and rejoice intensely because of the great joy and the glory of Christ our Lord.

[299] The First Apparition – He appeared to the Virgin Mary. Though this is not mentioned explicitly in the Scripture, it must be considered as stated when Scripture says that He appeared to many others. Focus on Jesus consoling His mother

Matthew 28:1-10 Jesus Appears to the Women at the Tomb
John 20: 11-18 Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
Luke 24: 13-35 Jesus Appears to the Disciples on the Way to Emmaus
John 20: 19-29 Jesus Consoles the Apostles and Appears to Thomas
John 21: 1-19 Jesus and Peter

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