Editor’s word: Sacred House: The Prayer Guide 2026 suggests six steps of prayer and contemplation for exploring the each day Scripture passages: The Presence of God, Freedom, Consciousness, The Phrase, Dialog, and Conclusion. We’ve invited our Ignatian bloggers to discover every step in a sequence concluding at this time.
Conclusion
“I thank God for these moments we’ve got spent collectively and for any insights I’ve been given in regards to the textual content.” (The Irish Jesuits, Sacred House: The Prayer Guide 2026)
This previous summer time our household managed to get away for per week on the seaside. At this life stage when our kids are actually younger adults, we’ve got come to acknowledge and recognize how valuable the time is after we can all get collectively merely to get pleasure from some heat climate, sunshine, and surf.
These sorts of experiences won’t final endlessly. In some unspecified time in the future, our kids will transfer away and start constructing lives for themselves, maybe with spouses and kids of their very own. Every trip has a selected which means, which we all know to savor within the second.
Trying again on the images we took, I think of all of the optimistic emotions we shared: the delight of splashing by way of heat water as we took lengthy walks alongside the shoreline; the awe of lovely sunsets, gazing westward throughout the intracoastal waterway; the carefree dinners we shared, sampling native seafood and connoisseur pizza and having fun with views of the water.
These moments scrolling by way of images by no means fail to evoke emotions of gratitude. Even within the midst of the busiest day, a look at my cellphone’s lockscreen (which I’ve set to cycle by way of favourite household images) calls to thoughts lovely recollections and pulls me momentarily out of the rush-to-the-next-class towards the longer story of our household’s life collectively.
Gratitude for prayer time, I’ll counsel, is moderately like a pull towards the longer story of our pilgrimage with God.
Prayer is all the time concrete: a human soul responding to the invitation of God to develop in love by way of intimate, heart-to-heart dialog. And since it’s concrete, it entails listening to God’s whispers, nonetheless a lot we babble. To invoke a medieval maxim, “No matter is obtained is obtained in line with the situation of the receiver.” (Quidquid recipitur advert modum recipientis recipitur.) We hearken to what God speaks to us by way of Scripture and obtain it in line with the situation through which we discover ourselves. If we’re joyful, we hear God’s Phrase in gentle of the joyful situations of our life. If we’re troubled, we hear the Phrase in ways in which supply to God the supply of our troubles. The expertise of prayer turns into, in a method, a mirror of our lives and infrequently particularly of our rapid life experiences: this dialog, this relationship, this difficulty at work, this concern for a cherished one.
After we shut our prayer with gratitude, we pull ourselves out of the rapid content material of our dialog with God and recall the goodness of God’s originating invitation into intimate relationship. We recall the lengthy story—each the lengthy story of our particular person pilgrimage with God and the even-longer story of God’s presence to us over the course of salvation historical past.
A pal texted me the opposite day, saying thanks for the dialog we’d had the night earlier than. He’s been going by way of a tough patch, and so I simply needed to sit down with him some time to be current and pay attention. It was not the best dialog, as a result of it was his alternative to provide voice to some actually exhausting life circumstances. However the textual content was quick and to the purpose, to the impact of claiming, “Thanks for listening.” Closing our prayer time with an analogous act of gratitude ensures that we by no means deal with God as a petition merchandising machine (Pop in prayer; count on desired end result.), or as a therapist (“Make me really feel good, God!”), or as an oracle (“What’s the smart phrase for the day?”). It’s a reminder to let God be God and to relaxation like a toddler in its mom’s arms (See Psalm 131:2.) whereas in prayer.
Able to attempt the Sacred House method of praying this Creation and past? Sacred House: The Prayer Guide 2026 is now out there for less than $12.
