Suscipe and the Contemplation to Attain God's Love

There is a beginning and an end… and hopefully everything in-between is congruent and in harmony with what is said first and last.

In the previous post, I told you what the beginning of the Exercises is all about. That was the First Principle and Foundation which ground the retreatant in the very meaning of creation and the purpose of life. All things are created for our well being and to aid us in the pursuit of the glory of God.

The final reflection of Ignatius' Exercises is found in Notes 230-237. It is titled:

Contemplation to Attain the Love of God.

(By the way, there are many things that are contained as supplemental resources after this, but they are not the Exercises themselves.)

The First Principle and the Contemplation are the Bookends for the Exercises and are deeply intertwined and supportive of each other.

By the time a retreatant has come to this final reflection, Ignatius' assumption is that the retreatant is full of gratitude, having gained awareness of the Presence, Work and Word of Christ (or having Found God in All Things), has consecrated desires to know, love and serve God, and a generosity of spirit that desires to do more for the greater glory of God.

This final reflection invites the retreatant to consider the great love and grace of God for her or him. It is called the contemplation to ATTAIN God's love. But the word - attain - is not used in the sense of "learn" but rathe rin the sense of "awareness" or "the experience of" God's love.

There are four movements in this reflection. The retreatant reflects on:

God's gift to them (all the retreatant is and has is from God), #234

God's self-giving, #235

God's ongoing labors and works on their behalf, #236

God's unceasing self-giving love, #237

In the center of these reflections is a beautiful and profound prayer. It is sometimes referred to as the "Suscipe" which is simply the first Latin word of the prayer, which begins, "Take, Lord, and receive…" "Suscipe" is "take."

Here is the prayer:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

my memory,

my understanding,

and my entire will,

all that I have and possess.

Thou hast given all to me.

To Thee, O Lord, I return it.

All is Thine,

dispose of it wholly according to Thy will.

Give me Thy love and Thy grace,

for this is sufficient for me.

Ignatius of Loyola

This is a prayer of loving surrender and trust in response to the deep awareness of the enormous love and grace of God for us.

I recommend that you write out this prayer and pray it daily for the week to come. You may also want to reflect several times on these words from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:17-21

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions
International www.lci.typepad.com