Inner Peace in Divine Love Retreat

 

Week Four – Love in Service

 

Ex 19 – Give me only your love and your grace

 

Preparation
After slowly reading the prayer texts, I stand before Jesus and imagine him humbly washing my feet. I allow the utter fullness of God to wash through me.

Opening Prayer
I ask the Spirit for an interior knowledge of all the good I have received.

Desire
I ponder with deep affection how God is loving me.

Prayer
I give thanks for all the benefits and gifts I have received.

I recall my retreat, day by day, to see how God has been at work in me.

I look for patterns in my prayer journal: What gives me life?

What is the loving way forward?

Conversation
I respond to God as a friend, beautiful creature, or lover.
With the Communion of Saints in support, I express my gratitude.
I consider what, in all reason and justice, I ought to offer and give God. I conclude saying, as one making a gift with heartfelt love:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding, and my entire will,
all that I have and possess.
You gave it all to me; to you I return it.
All is yours; dispose of it entirely according to your will.
Give me only the grace to love you,
for that is enough for me.

 

Prayer Texts

 

During the last supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, ”You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”
Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
(Jn 13:3–17)

I pray that, according to the riches of the Father’s glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
(Eph 3:16–19)

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8)


Time: 35 Minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes. Opening Prayer: 1 minute. Desire: 1 minute. Prayer: 20 minutes. Conversation: 3 minutes. Listening Book: 10 minutes.


 

For greater guidance, depth and practical use of this exercise and retreat, source the First Spiritual Exercises here.

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