Spiritual Exercises Day 1

Find a quiet place.  Light a candle. Tell God in your own words how much you love Him.  Then begin the meditation. 

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I Come From God; I belong to God; I will return to God.

Meditation: I come from God:

Where was I a hundred years ago? I was nothing. If I look back a hundren years, I see the world with its empires, its cities, its inhabitants; I see the sun which shines to-day, the eart on which I dwell, the land which gave me birth, the family from which I sprung, the name by which I am known: but I, - what was I, and where was I? I was nothing, and it is amisdst nothingness I must be sought. Oh, how many ages passed during which no one thought of me! For how can nothing be the subject of thought? How many ages when even an insect or an atom was greater than I! For they possessed at least an existence.

But now I exist. I possess an intellect capable of knowing, a heart formed for loving, a body endowed with wonderful senses. And this existence, who gae it to me? Chance? Senseless word! - y parents! They answer in the words of the mother of the Machavees:

“No, it was not I who gave you mind and soul; it was the Creator of the world” (2Mach.vii.22) Lastly, was I the author of my own existence? But nothingness cannot be the cause of existence. It is to God, then, that I must turn as my first beginning.

“Thy hands, O Lord, have made me (Ps. Cxxxviii.5) “Thou hast taken me from the abyss of nothing.

Consider. O my soul, the circumstances of thy creation. (q) God created me out of His pure love. Had He any need of my existence, or could I be necessary to His happiness? “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (jer.xxxi.3)

 

God created me, and the decree of my creation is eternal like Himself. From eternity then, God thought of me. I was yet in the abyss of nothingness, and God gave me a place in His thoughts! I was in His mind, and in His heart. “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

God created me, and in creating me preferred me to infinite number of creatures who were equally possible to Him, and who will for ever remain in nothingness. O God, how have I deserved this preference! “I have loved thee with an everlasting love”

God created me, and by creation made me the most noble of the creatures of the visible world. My soul is in His image, and all my being bears the stamp, the living stamp of His attributes.

Lastly God created me, and He has continued His creation during every moment of my existence. As many as are the hours and moments of my life, so often does He make me a fresh present of life.

Affections:

Sentiments of Humility at the sight of our nothingness “My substance is as nothing before Thee” (Ps. Xxxviii.6)

Sentiments of admiration, “What is man, that Thous shouldst magnify him? Or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him” (job vii.17)

Sentiments of gratitude. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget noth all He hath done for thee” (Ps. Cii. 1 and 2)