In our 10-year journey of using the Internet as a tool for helping busy people find intimacy with God, in the Ignatian tradition, we have discovered a number of things.
People are very hungry for ways to grow in their relationship with God.
There were 21 Million hits on one or other of the 3,000 pages on our Online Ministries Web site from over 120 countries last year.
The Internet is a wonderful means for offering help.
We have also learned that the Spirituality of St. Ignatius works wonderfully to serve people today, whose lives don’t lend themselves to much quiet time for prayer.
Ignatian Spirituality
Spirituality Works
We discovered in our own busy lives that this Spirituality works. While building the Online Ministries Web site, and while encouraging collaboration in ministry at Creighton, we experienced the complexities of raising children, taking care of ailing parents, as well as the challenges of the deaths of our parents. With Ignatius’ encouragement we practiced keeping a lively relationship with our Lord active in the midst of our daily life and service. We recognized that the “background” of our day the “consciousness” that seemed to be full of anxiety, worries, arguments, even a song could be filled with an ongoing dialogue with God, even a consoling sense of God’s presence within us. We found space and time for prayer, where there didn’t seem to be any space and time. We discovered that these small background times, though often brief, were significant. They provide a focus to our day. They allow our day to never be alone, but to be consciously for others, in communion with God.
For example, when we wake up in the morning, we can choose to take 30 seconds, as soon as we put our feet on the floor, to make our first connection with God.
"Prayer is just time with God"
Ben Anderson, SJ, provides some helpful tips on making time for prayer.
“Thank you for this day, dear Lord. Thank you for the gift of life and for my family. You know what you will ask me to do today, Lord. You know what challenges I will face in loving others. Give me patience and hope, courage and peace. I want to be your servant today.”
That 30 seconds might be fairly similar each day and become a habit that focuses our day in a relationship. It might be different each day, depending upon the upcoming events of our day or the graces each of us will need. The beauty of beginning our day this way is that we can continue this conversation in the shower, while we are getting dressed, as we are going to work, while walking down a hallway, going to a meeting, heading to lunch, while shopping, doing laundry.
“Thanks for being with me today, Lord. I can feel myself getting anxious about this and that. I can feel myself losing focus on you and my mission. Keep me close to you this day, Lord.”
Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus in 1540, after a 20-year personal discovery of God and experience of great growth in his own relationship with God, with Jesus whose companion he was in God’s mission. Ignatius went through this spiritual growth, his education, and his early pastoral ministry of sharing the exercises he went through in his spiritual journey as a lay person.
The ministry of the early Society of Jesus was to place themselves at the service of the Church to do whatever was “for the Greater Glory of God and the service of others.” The ministry of helping people pray and grow in their relationship with God was always central to whatever they did, as the Society grew to respond to the needs of the Church around the world.
Ignatius had learned that everything in the spiritual life is about our relationship with God. To pray was not about simply “saying prayers.” Prayer is the special means of communication in that relationship. For Ignatius, there are lots of ways of communicating with God. That communication involves our whole being, just as it does in our relationships with each other. And, Ignatius learned that we can become aware of how God communicates with us.
Though Ignatius guided others in retreating from the world briefly for an in-depth, transforming encounter with God, his day-to-day spirituality was fit for a busy life of service to others. Ignatius didn’t encourage his followers to practice long hours in prayer. He preferred finding intimacy with God “in all things.”
Ignatius gave shape to a new spirituality without the walls. And here the World Wide Web fits in perfectly with Ignatian Spirituality.
In Latin, Ignatius called it Contemplativus, simul in actione, being a contemplative, while at the same time being in action. Ignatius’ spirituality offers us the opportunity to learn how to be busy people, giving ourselves away in lives of service to others, while at the same time growing in intimacy with God.
Very brief, spontaneous expressions of this relationship we have with God give shape to the relationship and make it an ongoing relationship, in the midst of our daily lives.
Online Help
Computers are a big part of most people’s day in work and in recreation. While building a ministry online, initially for our own faculty and staff at Creighton, we discovered that the World Wide Web could be a tremendous way to provide support for the lives of busy contemplatives in action. You can find the Online Ministries web site at: www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry
Andy Alexander, SJ and Maureen McCann Waldron are creators of the Online Ministries web site operated through the Collaborative Ministry Office, Creighton University
