Outreach Activities
Ignatian spirituality for all
We believe that Ignatian spirituality can be of benefit to a wide range of people. It can enrich one’s spiritual life and help to deepen one’s relationship with God by finding Him in all things.
Our spirituality can also serve as a framework for discernment, that is, the art of recognising, under which, or under who’s influences, I’m acting. Ignatian Spirituality can help us in making sure that we’re taking decisions for the right reasons, and under the influence of the Spirit of God.
We offer a variety of experiences to become familiar with this spirituality:
Guided Prayer Experience
This is an experience to introduce you to praying with the Bible according to the tradition of St Ignatius.
The context is usually the parish or another group within the Church.
Through this experience:
- You will receive accompaniment from an experienced guide
- Learn how to pray with the Bible
- Learn how to pray alone
This experience involves:
- Committing oneself to pray for 30 minutes a day for two to four weeks
- 2 meetings for all participants together
- 2 individual meetings per week with your guide
If you are interested in doing this experience personally or for your group, contact us. If you wish to organise an activity in your parish, kindly speak to your parish priest and invite him to contact us.
Spiritual Exercises in daily life
The Spiritual Exercises are a process through which the person doing them, searches and finds God in her life. This search produces order in the life of the person and then helps her to find God’s will for her or, in other words, find a direction towards self-fulfilment and the service of others.
This programme of prayer is done with the help of a trained guide who accompanies the person through the itinerary of the Exercises, which can take various forms. When done in retreat form, the exercises take 30 days, but they can be done in daily life over a period of several months.
If you are seeking to seriously deepen your relationship with God, or have an important decision to make and wish to be guided by God in the process, then you may consider the possibility of doing the Exercises in daily life.
It will involve a serious commitment to prayer of around one hour per day and meeting a spiritual guide on a weekly basis for around 9 months.
If you are interested contact us and we’ll put you in contact with a guide.
Spiritual Accompaniment
Our faith journey is personal, but we never walk alone. Faith is expressed within a community of believers. Furthermore, in every christian’s life a time will come when we need a little help with our faith. There are moments when we may not be seeing clearly, have periods of doubt, hours of trial, or times for important decisions to be taken, etc.
There is a long tradition in the Church of people with more experience helping others in these moments.
The practice of spiritual accompaniment involves regular meetings with a spiritual director who will accompany you on your way with the Lord. Spiritual accompaniment is practised in an environment of confidence.
Generally speaking, the greatest benefit is obtained when a person meets her director on a regular basis. The typical frequency of meetings is monthly, but one may adapt according to the needs of the person.
The Centre for Ignatian Spirituality trains people, mostly lay, to become spiritual directors and till now we have a number of people available for accompaniment.
Should you be interested, do not hesitate to contact us and we’ll suggest some people who you may contact for accompaniment.
Formation in Spirituality and Accompaniment
As was said above the Centre for Ignatian Spirituality trains people, mostly lay, to become spiritual directors. This is done through a courses, offered in collaboration with the Pastoral Formation Institute, that includes a basic theological formation, modules on spirituality, pastoral skills, practical training, etc. Lectures are held every Thursday evening while some modules are held during weekends. The itinerary is made up of two courses each having a duration of two years and a new cycle of courses starts when the previous one finishes. The last course ended in 2023, thus the next course is scheduled to start on September 2024. Applications for this course will open earlier during the same year.