Week #20

Forty Weeks ~ Sacred Story

Encouragements & Wisdom

In addition to this week’s prayer materials, there are new Encouragements and Wisdom for Week 20 (PDF).

Part Two
Building Sacred Story Prayer Practice

1 I resolve to ask God for help to be faithful to my prayer disciplines. I also resolve to spend no more and no less than 15-minutes for these times of prayer.

2 For week twenty I am invited to enter the third meditation of Memory. As St. Ignatius suggested, I will engage my formal prayer at least once daily.

3 Meditation Three—Memory: Use your first prayer session to read Memory and then do the Exercise as suggested during your 15-minute prayer sessions for the rest of the week.

I will awaken to the present moment.
I will awaken to my spiritual nature.
I will not make any decisions based on fear.
I will practice Sacramental Reconciliation monthly.

Focus Affirmation for Week Twenty

I will say this affirmation aloud once daily:

“Impossible” is not a word in God’s vocabulary.

Read this reflection at the beginning of the week

Awakening to Sacred Story Prayer—Memory

Every day, consciously enter Sacred Story prayer during your set time(s). For these next weeks, we are building the five meditations of Sacred Story prayer. Set aside the other pieces and focus on Memory for your 15-minute prayer sessions this week. Your focus is Memory.

Be faithful to the structure. Ignatius was wise in developing the ritual, and rituals are very important. The ritual itself detailed below does not save you. Yet the ritual, faithfully practiced, makes it easier for you to open your mind and heart to the One who does save you! Rituals are good. Review the structure of the 15-minute prayer sessions. You will find these at the bookmark you left in Week 16.

Awakening to Sacred Story—Memory

Prayer Exercise—Memory

MEMORY
I believe every violation of love committed by me and against me is in my memory, and I ask God to reveal them to me, especially those that have manifested themselves today, so I can be healed.

Prelude: I hold in my heart, by the power of God’s grace, the memory of every action—of every thought, word and deed—done to me and done by me, that has eroded my innocence. I affirm that these unloving thoughts, words and deeds have spiritual, physical, and emotional consequences that wound me, others, and creation and for which Christ had to suffer for my redemption. I believe all these unloving actions have both generational and evolutionary consequences. At the root of my own narcissism are some events that more than others, have more significantly distorted my heart and mind. These events cripple my desire and my ability to love selflessly and to freely forgive others.

Illuminative Grace: Here I ask for what I desire: to become conscious of my lost innocence; the grace to see and the power to touch the Original Sins and wounds, especially the most vital ones, which shape in me an anti-story instead of a Sacred Story. I ask for the grace of an illumined conscience to know intimately how these wounds and sins connect to everything I do that makes life burdensome; to know how and why these wounds so often compel me to violate God’s life in myself, others and creation. I ask God for the grace to wake up so I can see, feel, and name these thoughts, words, and deeds, and bring them to the light of day, to be healed by the Divine Physician.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.

(Ps 95: 8-9)