Week #22

Forty Weeks ~ Sacred Story

Week 22 Prayer Exercises

Encouragements & Wisdom

In addition to this week’s prayer materials, there are new Encouragements and Wisdom for Week 22 (PDF).

Part Two
Building Sacred Story Prayer Practice

1 I will preview my week and visualize the places and times for my prayer. They will be places apart—technology-free zones. I also resolve to spend no more and no less than 15-minutes in each formal prayer session as St. Ignatius suggested.

2 For week twenty-two I am invited to pray the fourth meditation in Sacred Story prayer: Mercy.

3 Meditation Four— Mercy: I will begin my week reviewing the prayer structure from Week 16 and practice the prayer on Mercy for the rest of the week’s prayer periods.

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-Two

I will say this affirmation aloud once daily:

My life’s greatest tragedies can be transformed
into my life’s major blessings.

Read this at the beginning of the week

Awakening to Sacred Story Prayer—Mercy

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 Mercy for your 15-minute prayer sessions this week. Your focus is Mercy.

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’s Meditations—Mercy

Prayer Exercise—Mercy

MERCY
I believe that forgiveness is the only path to healing and
illumination. I beg for the grace of forgiveness, and the grace to
forgive, especially for the general and particular failures of this day,
and from my past.

Prelude: The path to Christian holiness and an illumined consciousness runs through the darkest memories and deeds of your life, strangely enough. These memories and deeds corrupt your innocence and blind your vision to the sacredness of all life. These memories and deeds can, by choice, act as a wall blocking the peace that leads to holiness and highest consciousness, or as a gate opening to them. The gate is unlocked by forgiveness and compassion; both received from God, and then extended to all those entwined with the lost innocence that broke your heart: those who hurt you, those whom you hurt, and the gifts of creation that you abused or misused as a result. This miracle of peace and enlightenment is attainable through Christ, who bore in love the wounds of every sin and dark deed since time immemorial. Christ has the power to transform darkness, sin and death into grace for the salvation of the world.

Illuminative Grace: Here I ask for what I desire: for the grace to forgive any person who wounded my innocence, or who broke my heart. I pray to not only forgive them, but to have compassion and mercy on them. I ask for the grace of mercy and forgiveness for those whose hearts I have broken, and whose innocence I have wounded, and the gifts of creation that I have misused. I beg to know personally the One who absorbed in His heart and body every wound and every sin of this dark evolution across the millennia. I beg for the dual knowledge of sin and mercy as it affects my life story. I beg for patience, knowing that accepting and offering mercy and forgiveness leads me to holiness. This awakening to highest consciousness takes a lifetime.

Fill us at daybreak with your mercy,
that all our days we may sing for joy.
Make us glad as many days as you humbled us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
Show your deeds to your servants,
your glory to their children.

(Ps 90: 14-16)