Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Devotion

Renew a right spirit within me. In his spiritual exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola directs those preparing for confession of sin to undertake an examination of conscience. The meditation has this basic movement: (1) acknowledge a grace in your life and give thanks to God, (2) examine and name your brokenness, (3) ask God to heal your brokenness, (4) imagine what form a sign of that healing might take and imagine living that way, and (5) give thanks to God for the present grace. We are entering into 40 days of preparation toward renewed life, the Easter promise of a new dawn, the spring promise of new growth. “Truth happens to the prepared mind,“ wrote Bernard Lonergan. Germination of seed is more likely to happen in prepared soil. And so we make the sign of the cross—with ash—and confess our sin to prepare ourselves to enter the land God has promised, flowing with milk and honey.