Day 1
The First Principle and Foundation
Why we exist and what we are for
c. 1556
Grace to ask for
Lord, grant me a deep freedom — that I might desire nothing more and nothing less than You.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."
Deuteronomy 6:5
Composition of Place
Imagine yourself standing before God — not in judgment, but in conversation. He has made you. He knows you completely. He is asking a simple question: what do you want?
Points for Meditation
Created for God
The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by so doing to save his soul. Everything else on the face of the earth is created for the human person to help in attaining the end for which he is created. This is not a restriction — it is a liberation. You were not made for work, for approval, for comfort, for achievement. You were made for God.
All things as means
From this it follows that we are to use created things insofar as they help us attain our end, and rid ourselves of them insofar as they hinder us. This principle — called indifference by Ignatius — is not coldness. It is a radical freedom. The person who can take or leave wealth, health, long life or short, honor or dishonor, is free to choose what God chooses. Nothing has a grip on him.
The great disorder
The disorder in our lives comes from loving things we should only use, and using things we should love. We love comfort and use people. We love reputation and use relationships. We love security and use God — calling on him only when we need something. The Exercises are a 30-day school in reordering these loves.
The question
Sit quietly and ask yourself: what do I actually want? Not what I am supposed to want, but what I find myself pursuing when no one is watching. Does that answer match what God wants for me? The gap between those two answers is the territory the Exercises will explore.
Colloquy
Speak to God as a friend. Tell Him honestly where your loves are disordered — where you cling to things that are not Him. Ask for the grace of holy indifference: that you might hold every created thing loosely enough to offer it back to Him. Close with the Suscipe if it feels true: "Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will — all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me."
Closing Prayer
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will — all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me. Amen.
Remain in silence for a few minutes.
Do not rush to the next exercise.