The main purpose of Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises is to awaken us to the depth and vitality of God’s love in our lives. Ignatius wants us to know and experience that love personally, so that we will be healed and transformed by it, but he never wants us to lose sight of the reality of God’s love for all.
The more exposure and experience we have with this love and with God’s invitation to us to share that love, the more able we are to see the constancy of God’s love taking shape in collaborative partnership with us.
The meditation on God’s love in the Fourth Week of the Exercises invites to consider how: Like a potter with clay, like a mother in childbirth, or like a mighty force blowing life into dead bones, God labors to share divine life and love.
“Laboring to share life and love” is a core definition of collaboration, and, as we learn collaboration from the God of live, we are invited into deeper forms of collaboration with one another. The earth is our common home, and the great work of caring for one another and for our planet will require all the love we have. What a blessing to know that we have a God who loved us enough to share life with us in all of its particulars and challenges.
