31B SE Growing in Love of God

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PREPARATORY ACTS
PREPARATION
Let us enter into the presence of God.
1. Opening prayer:
Lord my God grant me the grace that all my intentions, actions and operations be purely ordered to the service and praise of your divine majesty.
Composition of the prayer
Imagine myself before the Blessed Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the angels and saints.
Second Petition
Lord, please grant me a deep interior knowledge of so much love I have received from you, so that I may fully reply to your love with service, honor and adoration in all I do.
BODY OF CONTEMPLATION
“We have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1Jn 4:16).
1. FIRST POINT:
[234] Bring to memory the benefits received, of Creation, Redemption and particular gifts, pondering with much feeling how much God our Lord has done for you, and how much He has given you of what He has, the same Lord desires to give me Himself as much as He can, according to His Divine ordination. And with this to reflect on myself, considering with much reason and justice, what in turn I ought to offer and give to His Divine Majesty, that is to say, everything that is mine, and myself with it, as one who makes an offering with much feeling:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my intellect, and all my will -- all that I have and possess. You have given all to me: to You, Lord, I return it! All is yours, dispose of it according to your will. Give me your love and grace, for this is enough for me.
St. Thomas Aquinas commentary on the Ten Commandments, says that to love God we need four things:
1. Thinking about God’s benefits: all the good things that we have and are, come from him.
2. Thinking about God’s excellence: his attributes, which are all good and excellent.
3. Renouncing worldly things: not setting before God any idols: detachment from creatures!
4. Avoiding sin totally and completely.
2. SECOND POINT:
[235] Second Point. The second, to look
1. How God dwells in creatures, in the elements, giving them being, in the plants vegetating, in the animals feeling in them, in men giving them to understand: and so in me, giving me being, animating me, giving me sensation and making me to understand; likewise making a temple of me, being created to the likeness and image of His Divine Majesty;
2. Reflecting as much on myself in the way which is said in the first Point, or in another which I feel to be better. In the same manner will be done on each Point which follows.
Saint Ignatius is obviously far from falling into a pantheism, since with the utmost truth philosophically and theologically we can say that God is present in things; by "presence, essence and power", says St. Thomas. He is giving being into things.
3. THIRD POINT:
[236] Third Point. The third, to consider how
1. God works and labors for me in all things created on the face of the earth -- that is, behaves like one who labors -- as in the heavens, elements, plants, fruits, cattle, etc., giving them being, preserving them, giving them vegetation and sensation, etc. Then to reflect on myself.
4. FOURTH POINT:
[237] To look how all the good things and gifts descend from above, as my poor power from the supreme and infinite power from above; and so justice, goodness, pity, mercy, etc.; as from the sun descend the rays, from the fountain the waters, etc. Everything is in charity, in love.
The perfection of our life consists in charity. Charity is what unites us with God, and makes us more similar to Him. Saint John of the Cross said: "In the evening of life we will be judged by charity."
CONCLUSIVE ACTS
Colloquium. Make acts of thanksgiving, and faith in the love God has for you.
Also offer to God the prayer of St. Ignatius:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my intellect, and all my will -- all that I have and possess. You have given all to me: to You, Lord, I return it! All is yours, dispose of it according to your will. Give me your love and grace, for this is enough for me.