Saint of the Month: St Ignatius of Loyola

St Ignatius of Loyola
Feast day: July 31
Patron of Dioceses of San Sebastian and Bilbao, Biscay & Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Military Ordinariate of the Philippines, Society of Jesus, Soldiers, Educators and Education.

This month, we celebrate St Ignatius of Loyola. The founder of the Jesuit order, which was important in the wake of the Reformation, he is patron of a number of communities and educational institutions throughout Spain and the Philippines, and well-known Loyola University in Baltimore MD, educators/education in general, soldiers and spiritual retreats, as well as the order he founded (SJ).

I chose to look at St Ignatius of Loyola this month because I think his Imaginative Prayer, or Ignatian Contemplation, is something we can introduce to our little ones to get them praying about the Gospels. This form of prayer lends itself so well to young minds!

I would introduce it by saying something like, “today we’re going to be in a Bible story! We’ll read it together first, and then pretend we are part of it to imagine what it might have been like for us personally”

Below is a description of how to engage in imaginative prayer.

1. Choose a bible story – one that really has a story feel. Probably not from anything like Leviticus, Psalms, Proverbs, or the Epistles. Children’s Bibles are a great resource for this, as they tend to be much more story-oriented. There are also a few audio and a video contemplations on this website (you’ll have to scroll down a little to get to the good stuff).
2. Ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as you join in the story
3. One person reads through the story aloud in prayer
4. Act out the story using prompts, or for older children (or yourself!), you can simply have some silent prayer thinking about the story (in traditional Ignatian contemplation, you might choose a character or an object in the story and think about experiencing the story from their point of view) and then discuss it. It is important to consider what message God is sending them through this exercise.
5. Read the story aloud again, but this time, ask your children to bear in mind (or act out) the new details they were able to see from the imaginative time.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!

St Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

Until next time, let’s pray for each other. And remember, we can do Mom things through Christ who strengthens us!