The generous God of surprises

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secluded meteor showers

Antarctic Wastelands, Domy Castellano

Welcome to the Saturday Examen.

We’ve reached the final day of January. For a lot of us, January can be a difficult month; a bleak month where we feel our way through the darkness, perhaps even with a sense of crawling into the year.

So today, let’s look back at January, at where God has been in the movements of the month. If that sounds a little daunting (because maybe you can’t even remember what happened yesterday), don’t worry! An Examen prayer is designed to do with God, asking God to reveal what’s been going on with the movements of the Holy Spirit, and the counter movements of what St Ignatius referred to as, the “bad spirit”.

To begin, settle yourself into a comfortable but alert position wherever you are.

Breathe in God’s love for you… breathe out anything that is weighing you down in this moment…thoughts, distractions, to-do lists…let them be for a while.

Let your mind sweep back over this month. No need to strain your memory… just let a few events resurface and notice what catches your attention.

Did anything surprise you? Anything you’d forgotten about?

Hold before you a moment where gratitude was unlocked for you…let that gratitude come to life again in its fullness now.

Now hold before you a moment where you experienced a weighing down…something that made you feel far from God… perhaps a spiralling thought or something that caused a feeling friction in your faith...

You might like to hand that experience over to God…

Have you managed to find God in your January experience this year? How does this speak into your year ahead? Has this revealed anything about how you might like to be more attentive to God in the coming months?

Ask the generous God of surprises for whatever grace you might need to live the rest of this year in all of its fullness in Christ.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

World without end

Amen