Contemplation to Attain the Love of God – w/ Fr. Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V.

discerning hearts calm presents the contemplation to attain the love of God with father Timothy Gallagher father Gallagher is a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual formation according to the Spiritual Exercises of st. Ignatius of Loyola he's featured on several series found on the Eternal Word television network he's also the author of numerous books based on the spiritual teachings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the venerable Brunel an tarry founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary we now begin the special presentation on the contemplation to attain the love of God with father Timothy Gallagher we are going to look at an exercise of Prayer which Saint Ignatius places at the conclusion of his Spiritual Exercises and which he entitles contemplation to attain the love of God now like other elements in the exercises that we could look at for example the rules for discernment and other things they have their original setting in the spiritual journey of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises that retreat but because of their richness they can also be fruitful outside of that original context and in daily life and so that's what we're going to do here for some of us this may be a first introduction to praying with the Spiritual Exercises and perhaps would awaken an interest to know more about them for others of us who have experience of the exercises this will be a return return to and a renewal in some way of an exercise or prayer already already done in the course of the retreat in any case however it's hard to think of a richer theme for prayer then we find in this exercise contemplation to attain the love of God which is the Great Commandment which is the very nature of God and therefore leads us very directly to the heart of our relationship with God so I'm just going to briefly speak about the exercise just to present it and then we will offer it to you for your prayer now Ignatius introduces this prayer by inviting us to consider two notes or qualities of love because these will run through and will inform everything that takes place in the exercise to follow first love ought to manifests itself in deeds more than in words second love consists in a mutual sharing of goods the lover shares everything with the beloved just as every good is shared between the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with those points in mind we must place ourselves in the presence of God and in his angels and in his Saints who intercede for us who have prayed for us throughout the retreat the first is that love he says ought to manifest itself more indeed sand in words how love needs both love does need words and we know how precious words of love said to us are sometimes words that we'll never forget for the rest of our life love does need words but as Ignatius says here love ought to manifest itself more in what one does in relationship with the beloved and then in those words as precious as they are so it's especially how we interact how we relate what we do that reveals love and the second of these notes is that love consists in a mutual sharing Ignatius says so he specifies love consists in a mutual sharing of goods for example the lover gives and shares with the beloved what he possesses or something of that which he has or is able to give and vice versa the beloved shares in the same way with the lover thus if one has knowledge he shares it with the one who does not possess it and so also if one has honor or riches thus one always gives to the other so this is the second quality of love that Ignatius would write an invite us to reflect on love involves a mutual sharing a mutual giving the one who loves who wants to give as much as he can of what he has and finally what he is to the beloved and the beloved in return wants to give as much as she has and finally what she is to the one that she loves so those are the two qualities of love he wants us to see it's more matter of what we do than what we say and love consists in a mutual sharing a mutual giving now as Ignatius generally does when he invites us to begin to move into prayer he provides a few very simple introductory steps that only take a short while and which ease us gently into the prayer it's the equivalent I suppose of when we enter 'the church and we walked down the aisle toward our pew and we genuflect can be get settled and then we're ready to pray something like that on the level of our individual prayer is what Ignatius has us do its brief but it sets the stage for the prayer that gives a kind of ease of entering into it and these preloads are very rich pre loses his term for these in there are two of them we must place ourselves in the presence of God and in His angels and in His Saints who intercede for us who have prayed for us throughout the retreat I ask for an intimate knowledge of the many blessings received that filled with gratitude for all I may in all things love and serve the divine majesty so we begin he says by representing the place where are we in this prayer what's the setting of this prayer how are we sitted thats the first thing in Isha's always invites us to see which here he says is to behold myself standing in the presence of God our Lord and of his angels and saints who intercede for me this is a beautiful thing so as we are about to contemplate the love of God and please God open ourselves to receive it more deeply as we pray the setting the spiritual place as it were our space of this prayer is to see ourselves however we imagine this in the presence of God and all the angels and the communion of saints and all of them these angels and saints are interceding for me they know me they love me they're my brothers and sisters in the communion of the Saints and they long with great eagerness that the grace that I am seeking as I pray be poured out upon me so the person at prayer might in some way just pause to become aware of being in the ineffable and endlessly loving presence of God maybe just to see Jesus and the gaze of love in his eyes or the Holy Trinity in some way and then the angels the richness and profusion of the angels who surround the Trinity with such love and then the saints and there may be saints that are special to us that we might want to become aware of in a special way saint torres st. john paul ii and any saint who might be special to us and just for a moment just to live in that space of the communion of the saints and the richness of this love in intercession that involves me as I pray we must place ourselves in the presence of God and in His angels and in His Saints who intercede for us who have prayed for us then I ask for an intimate knowledge of the many blessings received that filled with gratitude for all I may in all things love and serve the divine majesty then the second Prelude is to ask for the grace that we're seeking in this exercise of Prayer we always do that there's something that move why do we pray there's a desire there's something in our hearts that we want that we're seeking and we ask for that we ask for that grace as we begin the prayer and so Ignatius says the grace is this here it will be to ask for an intimate knowledge of the many blessings received that filled with gratitude for all I may in all things love and serve the divine Majesty which is a very rich impact description of a grace so here we're asking for intimate knowledge of the many blessings received not just abstract or from a distance knowledge speculative in some sense but intimate knowledge the way one person knows another person through living in common through sharing life the way friends or spouses or family members get to know each other and intimate knowledge of what of the many blessings received that's the focus of this prayer that's what we're looking at the endless ongoing continual ways in which God is pouring out blessings gifts of love upon us and we ask for an intimate in the flesh heart level knowledge of these many blessings and why do we ask for that so that filled with gratitude for all I may in all things love and serve the divine majesty because what will happen as an awareness of how endlessly enriched leave God pours out blessings upon us as that awareness grows within us the corresponding gratitude will well up in our hearts so that filled with gratitude for all and then that gratitude will move us to live in a certain way that filled with gratitude for all I may in all things all things because I've seen God's blessings in all things around me in all things preparing breakfast driving to work helping a child a time for prayer going to the doctor for help with a physical issue right so that filled with gratitude I mean all things love and serve the divine Majesty love and serve God we may have heard this phrase this classic Ignatian phrase of finding God in all things and here we can see something of the roots of it as an awareness of how blessed we are by God and how loved we are by God concretely because as Ignatius has said love is more a matter of what we do than what we say this is what God is endlessly doing for us and then because love is a mutual sharing a desire to respond Wells up within us and that response is described here as in all things loving and serving the divine Majesty so intimate knowledge of the blessings received so that gratitude will grow in my heart so that I will increasingly love and serve God in all that I do in my life I want to quote a simple thing from one of the depositions that was given in the cause of the edification and canonization of st. Therese and this was her sister Celine who was the one who was very close to her and later joined her in the Carmel and in her deposition Celine says this among her duties to God the servant of God because servant of God because that's what she was at the time and this was the deposition that led to her beatiful among her duties to God the servant of God attached particular importance to gratitude for favours received which is really interesting of the the intensity with which Torres loved the Lord and lived her relationship to God in the smallest of all things even she attached particular importance to gratitude she's good for us just to think about that to gratitude for favours received she said to me gratitude is the thing that brings us the most grace I have learnt this from experience try it and you will see I am content with whatever God gives me and I show him this in a thousand little ways let's hear that again gratitude is the thing that brings us the most grace I have learned this from experience try it and you will see and you can almost hear Ignatius not agreement to this because that gratitude is the key focus of this entire prayer sometimes we ask ourselves or we say to ourselves I don't feel like I love God enough and I don't know how to grow and the love of God is there a way how can I proceed to grow in the love of God and let's hear Torres gratitude is the thing that brings us the most grace I have learned this from experience try it and you will see in some sense that's Ignatius invitation try it enter into this prayer and you will see having prepared us now to enter into the prayer we plunge right into it and Ignatius articulates the prayer according to a series of considerations and there are four of them he calls them points and so what we'll do is just break open a bit his text in which he presents each of these points for prayer so having prepared us to pray what he's doing now is saying focus on this in your prayer and here's a way to do it and here's where it can lead so it's it's just very practical now there's nothing speculative at all about this this is geared toward as an exercise geared to helping us enter into prayer first consider the blessings of creation and redemption how God has called me into being and how Christ has suffered and died so I might be reconciled to the Father when I reflect upon the gifts of creation and then Redemption what sort of offering should I make so the first point Ignatius says is to call to mind the blessings of creation and redemption and the special favors I have received now that's one sentence but that's endless so there are three things Ignatius is inviting us to consider to take time to open our hearts to to see again to remember to recall as we pray this first point in this contemplation so Ignatius says to call to mind the blessings of creation and what we could do at this point it's just stopped to look back over our lives and just let a sense of how in such a multi-faceted way creation has blessed me over the years of my life so we could think for example of the place where we were raised the home the landscapes the that the hills the rivers the lakes the oceans all the beauties of nature that have surrounded us and been such a blessed part of our life the profusion of the of the plant and animal kingdom's that surround us the food that we've eaten the clothing that we worn places that are dear to us that we go to that lift our hearts maybe places in nature maybe times on vacation when we've seen the beauties of mountains or or waters and just let a whole sense of how God has blessed us I'm only mentioned a few things here this this is endless let a whole sense of how God has blessed us through creation arise within our hearts and I would do this without hurry there's no agenda here that to be completed within a given amount of time sometimes even in the retreat when there's time people will take several days you know to pray through this and I think if our hearts feel drawn anywhere it's much more fruitful in prayer just to stay there as long as we feel drawn rather than to feel somehow that we will be praying better if we're moving more rapidly through things Ignatius says in his exercises of this kind of Prayer that it's not much knowing that fills and satisfies the soul but the the feeling and the tasting of things interiorly which means unhurried prayer allowing the heart all the time it needs and once so firstly Ignatius says to consider the blessings of creations remembering that love is more a matter of what one does than what one says and that God has done all this for me and then Redemption the blessings of redemption and here too this is as endless as the entire history of salvation so at this point we might in our minds I just go back to the book of Genesis and how from all eternity God decides at a given time to create the world and you have the seven days of creation and the richness increasing richness of creation as God creates the earth and then the plants and the animals and finally the first human persons the original sin and the fall and the immediate promise of redemption and the slow preparation of that down through the centuries the the patriarchs Abraham Isaac Jacob the the Exodus Moses the journey through the desert the Promised Land Joshua the judges whenever the people would fall away endlessly patient God sends a judge to bring them back the prophets down through the centuries Isaiah Jeremiah the Exile and the return and the moment of the New Testament and of the Incarnation now arrives the angel Gabriel and Mary in Nazareth God having come into the world the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us the life of Jesus those 30 years in Nazareth the years of his public ministry and the culminating moment of his death and resurrection the birth of the church ascending of the spirits it's a spirit upon the apostles the expansion of the church the Desert Fathers the church fathers st. Thomas Aquinas st. Bonaventure and down through to our own time the endless pouring out of gifts of love the sacraments that have meant so much in our lives our own baptism and the Eucharist which is so precious to us in our life the church to which we belong the Scriptures and again this can expand in endlessly personal ways as we look at the whole richness of redemption of God's work which fills the whole of human history the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it God so loved the world that He gave His only Son and again we remember that love is more a matter of what one does that one what one says and love is a mutual sharing if God has done so much for me how will I respond and then thirdly Ignatius invites us to call to mind the special favors I have received and this too can it can expand very widely and deeply you know we're all familiar with uh Saint Torres's story of a soul in which he tells the story of God's graces to her and God's mercy and love to her we all have a story of us whole and in this third point what we do in a way is we slow down to let the Lord tell us that story however we want to do this we may find ourselves telling the story to God but it's ultimately his story to us and so here we could stop and just consider the the Providence sent down through the centuries prepared the meeting of our parents so that we would be born and just even that you know all that led through generations to the to the actual meeting in marriage of our parents so that we would be born the Providence at work that we would be born in this family and in this setting and be given the faith perhaps right from birth perhaps later in our lives whatever circumstances God the love of God in providing education for us the teachers we've had who have meant so much to us and perhaps different priests or figures in the church who have inspired us have taught us have instructed us in the faith have led us closer to God again the place of the sacraments our first communion our confirmation and perhaps later our marriage or religious profession ordination to the priesthood and the repetition of the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist the people that God caused us to meet the turns that God caused us our life to take that were redemptive for us and led us in ways that brought us to him sometimes when I've finished a retreat I will finish it with this exercise and I come to this particular point and linger on it just seeing again the whole of that history and Torres says to her sister gratitude is the thing that brings us the most grace try it and you will see intimate knowledge of the blessings receive the many blessings received Ignatius says so that filled with gratitude I may in all things love and serve the Lord so I would not hurry through this point either if we look at the Old Testament look at the Psalms for example many of them are just Israel remembering remembering what God has done for them through the patriarchs and the Exodus and down through their history there's a great richness and blessing in this and again I remember that love is more matter of what one does and one says and this is what God has done for me unceasingly first consider the blessings of creation and redemption how God has called me into being and how Christ has suffered and died so I might be reconciled to the Father when I reflect upon the gifts of creation and then Redemption what sort of offering should I make now having considered these various ways in which God has done so much for us and has loved us so deeply Ganesha says I will ponder with great affection and so my heart now is engaged in this how much I will ponder with much affection how much God our Lord has done for me and how much he has given me of what he possesses and finally how much as far as he can the same Lord desires to give himself to me according to His divine decrees then I will reflect upon myself and consider according to all reason and justice if someone did this much for us even if our hearts were not warmed with affection and love for this person just simple reason and justice would say that we would need to make some return so Ignatius says I will consider according to all reason and justice what I ought to offer the divine majesty that is all I possess and myself with it thus as one would do who is moved by a great feeling so there's much more now going on than simple thinking and reasoning about things but this is a heart and that is warmed or the deep sense of gratitude and wants in some way to correspond to this being moved in this way I will make this offering of myself and this is the setting of Ignatius famous sushi babe prayer sushi Bay taken from the first word in the Latin take and receive and this is our response which puts into words for us the desire of a heart that now sees itself so deeply deeply deeply loved and longs to correspond in some way and these are words so that at this point the person praying unheard ly now would pray this prayer take Lord and receive all my Liberty my memory by understanding and my entire will all I have and call my own you have given all to me to you Lord I returned it everything is yours do with it what you will give me only your love and your grace that is enough for me take Lord and receive all my liberty my memory my understanding and my entire will that is my whole interior world and all that I have and possess and everything that I have in this life I realize now that everything that I have you've given to me love moves me to want to respond with the same kind of totality you have given all to me to you oh lord I return it all is yours dispose of it wholly according to your will this is the person now who is completely available to the one who loves with a capital L all is yours dispose of it wholly according to your will give me your love and your grace for this is sufficient for me second consider how God dwells in all creatures in plants and in animals and in humans indeed he makes a temple of me since I have been created in His image and likeness when I reflect upon this marvelous honor bestowed upon me what sort of offering should I make so this is the focus god not only has given us his creation but himself lives within at his present to us in it and in different ways according to the different levels of creation so in the elements giving them existence so the earth itself the inanimate part of creation God is present to it constantly giving them existence conserving them this is one of the truths of our faith but it's a simple philosophical truth as well that God not only creates the whole richness of the created world in which we live and in which were of which were a part but constantly preserves it in being were God to his draw for an instant from it it would all cease to be so God not only creates into existence brings into existence but he is consistently present to every smallest aspect of his creation giving it existence and so we just consider that that in the inanimate world the earth the rivers and so forth God is there endlessly constantly present to them giving them existence in the plants giving them life and so God is also consistently present to the whole richness and profusion of the plants and the trees and the fields and so on around us and now conferring a higher level of being upon them they're living things giving them life in the animals conferring upon them sensation present of the whole richness of the animal life around us conferring yet a further degree of reality upon them so that there's sense a beings and then finally in man bestowing understanding present to us giving us a spiritual life mind that can know a will that can love and desire in all of this God is present to us giving us this so he dwells in me this is the person praying thinking now he dwells in me and gives me being like the elements unanimity elements life like the plants sensation like the animals and intelligence a specifically spiritual level of being that surpasses any of these other levels of creation just mentioned and makes a temple of me do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 and makes a temple of me since I am created in the likeness and image of the divine majesty so this is what Ignatius is inviting us to consider in this second point how God is present to all of his creation and in a uniquely rich way within me the human person present in the spiritual dimension of my being which he makes the temple of His Holy Spirit in a grace given in Baptism in acts 17 when Paul speaks to the Athenians he tells them in him now this is the God they don't know but this is the God that we do know through Jesus Christ in him we live and move and have our being it might be rich just to stop and look at each of those three things Paul says in him in God we live we live enveloped by God surrounded by God inhabited by God who dwells within us in him we live and move anything we do is done with the power and the life and a gift given by God in him we live and move and have our being our whole our whole existence we could think of the Incarnation the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us God present even in our own humanity present to us we can think of the outpouring of the holy spirit upon the church in Pentecost poured out upon the church through all the ages in the sequence that we say on Pentecost Sunday one description of the Holy Spirit is this in the latin dojis post Pazhani made literally sweet guest of the soul who lives within us dwells within us we could ponder the indwelling of the Trinity itself this ineffable mystery that God Himself the Trinity lives within us dwells within us which is why each human being is so uniquely precious we can think of the gift of the Holy Eucharist Jesus and lessly present among us leading us whenever we wish to approach him and then perhaps and adjust a very personal way God present to me in that lovely phrase of Paul Claudel God is the one who is more intimate to me than I am to myself God is the one who is more present to me and I am to myself now I'm gonna read just a part of Psalm 139 use of the first verses and this is the Marvel of the one at prayer of realizing how intimately close and present to him God is Oh Lord you search me and you know me you know my resting and my rising even that when I awake in the morning to go about the day you discern my purpose from afar you know what I'm about he mark when I walk or lie down all my ways lie open to you before ever a word is on my tongue you know it Oh Lord through and through even every word that I say and even before I say it God is that close behind and before you besieged me your hand ever laid upon me that's a beautiful thing that's like just the image of the father's or Jesus right and placed upon my shoulder you're that close to me I'm thinking you know as I say this let's say of a father with a son or a mother with a young son or young daughter and maybe they're watching something or just participating in a family time maybe watching another young brother playing his little league game and the parents hand just rests on the shoulder of the child without any words but it means everything to the child your present to me you're with me I'm not alone - wonderful for me this knowledge - hi beyond my reach and now questions that can have no had no answer oh where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your face nowhere you're that present always if I climb the heavens you are there I go down to the nether world you are there if I take the wings of the dawn and do all of the Seas for the furthest end even there your hand would lead me your right hand would hold me fast so this is what we're considering in the second point is this wonderful mystery of how God is present to us in all the different degrees of creation but most intimately personally to meet his beloved son beloved daughter then Ignatius says having considered this for whatever time our hearts desire I will reflect upon myself again in the manner stated in the preceding point or in some other way that may seem better which is to say being filled with a sense of how much God is doing for me in being constantly present to me in so many ways filled with gratitude my heart desires to respond and so for a second time I returned to the sushi Bay prayer and repeat this from my heart take Lord and receive all my Liberty my memory my understanding and my entire will all I have and call my own you have given all to me to you Lord I returned it everything is yours do with it what you will give me only your love and your grace that is enough for me in the third point Ignatius invites us to consider how God Labor's and works on our behalf so through all of these gifts God is not only present not only giving us these gifts and not only present in them but he is constantly working laboring on my behalf through these gifts so the third point third consider how God is laboring for me in all the creatures on the earth he is not content simply to set things in motion the toils for my benefit he makes trees bear fruit for us he makes the Sun Shine upon us and never ceases to work on my behalf when I see the Lord laboring without rest for my good but sort of offering should I make what Ignatius invites us to consider here is God not only creates the richness of the created world around us and us within it and is not only present to it but constantly as our lives unfold God is working through these different degrees of created reality and then very directly in our own relationship with him working on our behalf some biblical images of this which may help us just to see this that is to see that if the heavens exist and maintain their orders because God is present to them conserving them in that order if the elements support us if the vegetative and sensitive life of the plants and animals continues to function in its orderly way is because God is at work in all of this conserving all of this in its proper order and function and above all if I have life and continue to walk on my spiritual journey is because God is God is constantly serving me as Ignatius says God is makes himself as one who works as one who Labor's so some biblical images of this which might just introduce us into this reality Jesus washing the feet of his disciples John 13 just the image of Jesus having removed his outer garment having girded himself with a towel filled a basin with water kneeling at the feet of his disciples washing their feet God who Labor's in so many ways for me or in John 21 when they recognized Jesus now at the lakeshore as Jesus and they bring the boat in and come to the shore Jesus has prepared breakfast for them come and eat children come and eat again an image of the way God works on our behalf and then Jesus who says at various points in the gospel I am in the midst of you as one who serves her in Matthew 20 the Son of man came not to be served but to serve and these are images of the God who as Paul says in Philippians 2 when Jesus comes into the world he takes the form of a slave the word can mean either slave or servant and then gives himself spends himself in the work of redemption we could think of the father's divine providence constantly at work in our lives so he said earlier causing this event to happen or that meeting to take place or inspiring in us to take the step that just now becomes so important so many things in our lives that oftentimes we don't see in the moment but see more clearly in retrospect this is the father silently patiently continuously guiding our lives through His divine providence and we can think of the Holy Spirit always at work within us as the consoler The Advocate the Paraclete the one who is constantly inspiring leading us more deeply drawing us forward biblically we can see this expressed in Romans 8:28 we know that in everything god works in everything God works for good with those who love him and then Paul continues to develop this in the same passage so this is the the space of this third point in the prayer just to seek the grace as we explore these different aspects of an understanding an intimate knowledge Ignatius says of how God constantly is serving me constantly at work on my behalf and then remembering that love is more matter of deeds and words that love is a mutual exchange what is my response and for a third time we returned to the sushi Bay prayer take Lord we see you take Lord and receive all my liberty my memory my understanding and my entire will all I have and call my own you have given all to me to you Lord I return it everything is yours do with it what you will give me only your love and your grace that is enough from me and then in the fourth point Ignatius invites us to look at God's gifts from yet another perspective so that God gives them first point that God is present in them second point that God Labor's on our behalf through them third point and now finally to consider that all of these gifts are from God they are an outflow from God a participation in the reality of God and they reveal God something of God has seen through them finally consider all blessings Angus from heaven like water from a fountain all the power and justice and goodness and mercy that I possess from God who reigns into my soul and I see all the gifts God has showered upon me what sort of offering should I make so Ignatius has fourth point this is to consider all blessings and gifts as descending from above thus my limited power comes from the supreme and infinite power above if I can do anything create anything raise a family do my work share in the life of the church in various ways whatever limited power but real power God has given me to accomplish and to do all of this is an outpouring from the infinite power in God it's a limited but beautiful and rich sharing that God gives me in His infinite power if we want to use the word that Saint Thomas Aquinas would use for this the precise where it is our limited created reality is a participation in the infinite and unlimited reality of God which is also why because it's precisely a participation in that it also reveals God in limited but real ways so to justice goodness and mercy so if there is any justice in this world that there is any goodness in this world if there is any mercy in this world they are there as sharings an outflow from the infinite justice goodness and mercy that are in God so all of these are our created power justice goodness and mercy and so forth descend from above and Ignatius gives us two images descend from above as rays of light descend from the Sun and as waters flow from their fountains and this is a nice way to see it so the the light that we receive we receive as a light that is that pours forth from from the Sun which is its source and you watch a fountain bubbling up and there's the pool of water all of that water is flowing out from the original fountain and that is the truth of all the different gifts and blessings that we have so we look at in this fourth point all that surrounds us and ourselves with the understanding that this is a sharing of this infinite richness in God st. Bonaventure says at one point in his writing said God revealed himself through two books the book of Scripture which is the written book and then the book of nature so that as we enter more deeply into and just see the beauties of creation around us here we're invited to have eyes open to the truth that what we are seeing here is a created participation in the infinite beauty of God the beauty that we see here if we see it that way it does become a book in which God reveals himself all of creation around us becomes a pathway toward God and it's said of st. Ignatius that in his latter years he would go out walking in the garden and he would say to the flowers be silent I already know what you want to tell me in them and through them seeing God as sharings in God we may have had this experience sometimes and I'll just share it in one personal way but we can all find this in our own experience whether it's through the beauties of creation around us when our hearts are stirred by music when our hearts thrill at the the goodness of our child so many circumstances and we catch a glimpse for a moment of something beyond I remember once listening to a Bach cantata one of the movements in it which is exquisitely exquisitely beautiful and just finding myself saying this is not possible without a source there's something more than simply a human reality at work here and so just for a moment it's like a veil being taken aside for a moment and you just catch a glimpse of the deeper truth behind the beauty that is before you that's the dynamic of this fourth point finally consider all blessings Angus from heaven like water from a fountain all the power and justice saying goodness and mercy that I possess from God who reigns into my soul and I see all the gifts God has showered upon me what sort of offering should I make so that to say it in maybe a little more formal language all of creation is a sacrament of the infinite perfection and beauty of God a sacrament is something visible that leads us to know the presence of something that our eyes cannot see so we see the water being poured over the child at baptism and that is a visible sign of an interior reality taking place the washing clean from sin of the child and the embrace of God's grace and the opening of eternal life and we can say something are the same of the Eucharist for example when we see that our consecrated host as the priest holds it up what we see is a sacrament it's a visible reality that our eyes can see and through it we know another reality that our eyes cannot see but which is really and truly present the body blood soul and divinity of the Lord and so this fourth point invites us to see all that surrounds us in the created world as a sacrament as something visible which reveals the invisible but true and rich presence of God to us all of this is simply a sharing in the Lord and then again as with the preceding points aware that love is a matter of what we do more than what we say and that love is a mutual sharing if God does so much for us what will our response be and then we return yet again to the sushi Bay and pray it take Lord and receive all my Liberty my memory by understanding and my entire will all I have and call my own you have given all to me to you Lord I returned it everything is yours do with it what you will give me only your love and your grace that is enough for me so that is the contemplation to attain divine love as Ignatius gives it to us and my prayer would be that as we go through this our hearts would expand in a sense of how much we are loved and that as Torres says because gratitude is the thing that brings us the most grace in a rich and powerful way our hearts would expand in a desire to correspond to that love so that the community between us and the one who loves us so much continually grow may God grant us at blessing you've been listening to the contemplation to attain the love of God with father Timothy Gallagher this has been a special presentation brought to you by discerning hearts calm and the Oblates of the Virgin Mary to hear and/or to download this presentation along with many different programs brought to you by father Timothy Gallagher visit discerning hearts calm we hope that if this has been helpful for you that you will first pray for our mission and if you feel us worthy consider a charitable donation which is fully tax-deductible to help support our efforts but most of all we hope that you will tell a friend about discerning hearts calm you

Channel: Discerning Hearts

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Rating: 4.8865247 out of 5

Keywords: catholic, radio, podcasts, jesus, discernment, christian, devotionals, rosary, mary, blessed, mother, religion, prayer, Fr. Timothy Gallagher, Fr. Gallagher, Timothy Gallagher, Kris McGregor, Discerning Hearts, Discerning, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Ignatius, Contemplation to Attain the Love of God, Setting Captives Free, catholic discernment, spiritual exercises

Id: q9F0HlPaQOs

Length: 52min 8sec (3128 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 14 2020