Today we’re pleased to bring you an article written by Father Greg Cleveland, who we’ve been introducing to you over the past few weeks.People often ask how they can incorporate Ignatian spirituality into their lives, thinking it more fitting for the lifestyle of priests or religious. Actually, Ignatian spirituality is tailor-made for the active individual, with its goal of finding God in all things, whether in prayer, apostolic activity, or our ordinary daily routines! Prayer and wo...

A lot of people think of Confirmation as some sort of graduation ceremony, during which a person moves on from one part of their life in Christ to another. And to some limited extent, that’s true, as every sacrament brings us deeper into relationship with God.But something very specific is happening at Confirmation. When a person is confirmed, they are anointed with the oil of Chrism, and an anointing is a whole lot better than a graduation.What is chrism? Holy chrism is a mixture of olive...

One of my silliest memories from childhood is the time when I was seven years old and decided I would play a trick on my six-year-old brother, Gordy. It was nighttime, and my mom had probably run a short errand to the neighborhood store. Everyone else was gone, so we were alone in the house.As we were playing, a bright idea came to me: I could scare Gordy by turning out the light and screaming at the top of my lungs. So I stood by the light switch near the door, turned off the light, and commenc...

Not many people automatically associate Ignatian spirituality with children’s Bible reading, but in fact it’s an easy fit. Children love stories and are experiential by nature, and the Ignatian method for meditation on Scripture offers just that.We start the meditation by asking God for his grace, just the way that Ignatius teaches us. Then we use our imaginations to enter into a Gospel story, sensing and feeling what’s happening in the scene.This method we’re describing ...

You’ve probably heard the expression, “knock on wood.”  But what you may not know is that this popular saying refers to one of our own Catholic traditions – that of the recitation of the Rosary. The Rosary was a physical representation of one’s inner faith, and it was natural to finger or touch it when one was in distress or pain. “Knocking” the rosary beads together, people said, was sure to make one’s wish come true!The word itself comes fro...

Look around, at the state of the world, at the multiple crises erupting every day in every corner of the globe, and it’s easy to say, “How could it get worse?”Those were probably the same words used by people exactly one hundred years ago. In 1917, the western world was still engulfed in what would hopefully—and erroneously—be called the “war to end all wars,” warfare on a scale that no one had known before, a war that refined the use of poison, that cla...

Repetition. It’s often seen by those outside the faith as a real stumbling-block to understanding some key components of Catholicism—prayer, liturgy, even the calendar. “You say the same things over and over,” an acquaintance of mine complained one day, shaking his head. “I don’t get it. Do you really think that God didn’t hear you the first time?”Au contraire, mon ami: I am very sure indeed that God heard me the first time. I’ll even go a st...

In the Easter season the Church encourages us to read the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. What does that book have to do with Fátima? It’s not that the apparitions of Mary at Fátima can help us decode the Book of Revelation with all its visions. But at a deeper level, Fátima is about the main message of that book: We are in the battle of our lives, but have no fear because in the end, God wins!Many people have tried to figure out what the various vision...

If there are children in any facet of your life, whether you’re a parent, a teacher, an aunt, or just the neighbor next door, then you know the constant refrain: “Don’t forget to say thank you!” Humans are by and large selfish creatures: we’re born wanting, but once we have whatever it is we want, then we’re off to wanting something else. And we forget to thank whomever gave us the thing that we wanted in the first place.Our culture clearly supports this wanti...

Wonder. Being in the moment. Feeling close to God. These are all ways that our kids experience spirituality; and they could teach us a thing or two. All we have to do, perhaps, is put their experiences into a context. Ignatian spirituality, for example.Ignatian spirituality is so simple, and so fulfilling, that it’s easy to introduce into the lives of children. In fact, children are closer to many aspects of Ignatian spirituality than we are! We’ve taken a step away from the close re...