Jump to Any Step (35 of 36 · Click to Expand All 36 Days & Exercises)
01. The Presupposition & How to Enter the Exercises02. Principle and Foundation03. The Daily & Particular Examen04. Meditation with the Three Powers on the First, Second & Third Sin05. Meditation on Personal Sins & The Exclamation of Wonder at God’s Mercy06. Repetitions of the First & Second Exercises with the Triple Colloquy07. Meditation with the Five Senses on Ultimate Separation08. The Call of the Temporal King & The Oblation to the Eternal King09. The First Contemplation: The Incarnation10. The Second Contemplation: The Nativity & Application of the Five Senses11. The Presentation in the Temple & The Flight into Egypt12. The Hidden Life at Nazareth & Finding the Boy Jesus in the Temple13. Meditation on the Two Standards & Second Week Rules for Discernment14. Meditation on the Three Pairs of Men15. Departure from Nazareth & Baptism in the River Jordan16. Christ Fasting & Tempted in the Desert17. The Call of the Apostles & The Wedding at Cana18. The Sermon on the Mount19. Calming the Storm & Walking on the Waters20. Sending the Apostles, The Sinful Woman Forgiven, Feeding the 5,000, The Transfiguration & Preaching in the Temple21. The Raising of Lazarus & The Supper at Bethany22. Palm Sunday: The Humble Entry into Jerusalem23. The Three Manners of Humility24. Making an Election25. The Last Supper, Washing the Feet & The Agony in Gethsemane26. Betrayal, Arrest & The Night at the Houses of Annas and Caiaphas27. Christ Before Pilate & Before Herod28. The Scourging at the Pillar, Crowning with Thorns & ‘Ecce Homo’29. Carrying the Cross & The Crucifixion30. The Descent from the Cross, The Burial & The Silence of Holy Saturday31. The Resurrection: Christ Appears to His Mother & to Mary Magdalene32. The Road to Emmaus, The Appearance to St. Peter & The Upper Room33. St. Thomas’s Confession & Breakfast by the Sea of Galilee34. The Great Commission & The Ascension of Christ Our Lord35. Contemplation to Gain Love36. The Three Methods of Prayer
Movement IV · The Fourth Week (Unitive Way) · Step 35 · The Crown of the Spiritual Exercises
St. Ignatius of Loyola · Exx. 230–237

Contemplation to Gain Love (Contemplatio ad Amorem)

The summit of the entire Spiritual Exercises: learning that love consists in deeds and mutual sharing, seeing God giving, dwelling, laboring, and shining in all created things, and praying the Suscipe: ‘Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty... Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is enough for me.’

Assigned Scripture Reading (NIV) & Mystery Points

Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:7–19 · James 1:17 · Acts 17:27–28 · Romans 8:31–39

1 John 4:7–19 (NIV)
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19We love because he first loved us.
James 1:17 (NIV)
17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Acts 17:27–28 (NIV)
27God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Romans 8:31–39 (NIV)
31What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Points of the Mystery from St. Ignatius

Step 1 · Entering the Hour (2 Minutes)

Before You Start

Read James 1:17 and 1 John 4:7–19. Stand a step or two from your place of prayer for an Our Father (Exx. 75), reverence the Lord, and pray the Preparatory Prayer (Exx. 46).

Step 2 · Orienting the Heart & Imagination (5 Minutes)

The Preludes

First Note · Two Truths About Love (Exx. 230–231)

Before beginning the Preludes, ponder Ignatius’s two famous notes on love:

First Prelude · Composition of Place (Exx. 232)

Here it is to see how I stand before God our Lord, and of the Angels, and of the Saints interceding for me—the entire communion of heaven and earth gathered around you in love.

Second Prelude · Asking for What I Desire (Exx. 233)

Here it is to ask for an interior knowledge of so great good received, in order that, thoroughly grateful, I may in all things love and serve His Divine Majesty.

Step 3 · The Body of the Exercise (30–40 Minutes)

How to Pray the Contemplation to Gain Love (The Four Points & The Suscipe)

Ignatius instructs us to pray each of the Four Points slowly, and at the end of each point to reflect on ourselves and pray the Suscipe (“Take, Lord, and receive...”). You can pray all four points in one hour, or spend a full day on each of the four points:

First Point · Recalling the Gifts of Creation, Redemption & My Personal Life (Exx. 234)

Call to memory the benefits you have received:

  • Creation: How God brought the universe into being and made you in His own image and likeness.
  • Redemption: How when you were lost, the Eternal Lord did not send an angel, but gave Himself to you as much as He could, becoming Man and dying on the Cross for you.
  • Particular Gifts: Recall the specific, personal graces of your life—your family, your conversion, the friends and mentors He gave you, the prayers answered, the forgiveness received.

Reflect on yourself: Ponder with great affection what you on your side ought in reason and justice to offer and give to His Divine Majesty—and say with intense affection the Suscipe:
> “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my 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 enough for me.”

Second Point · How God Dwells in All Creatures (Exx. 235)

Look at how God does not merely send gifts from a distance like a rich benefactor mailing a package; He Himself dwells inside every gift:

  • In the elements (earth, air, water, fire), giving them being;
  • In the plants, giving them growth;
  • In the animals, giving them sensation and life;
  • In men and women, giving them understanding;
  • And so in me, giving me being, life, sensation, and intelligence—and even more, making a temple of me, since I am created in the likeness and image of His Divine Majesty!

Reflect on yourself and pray the Suscipe (“Take, Lord, and receive...”) again.

Third Point · How God Works and Labors for Me in All Things (Exx. 236)

Look even closer: God does not merely sit passively inside creation; He works and labors (trabaja) for you Right Now in every created thing on the face of the earth—like a loving father or craftsman actively tending the garden, keeping your heart beating, making the sun rise, sustaining your breath and your relationships at this very second.

Every breath you take, every meal you eat, every friend who encourages you is God’s hands actively laboring out of love for you.

Reflect on yourself and pray the Suscipe (“Take, Lord, and receive...”) a third time.

Fourth Point · All Good Things Descending from Above Like Rays from the Sun (Exx. 237)

Finally, look at how all the good things and gifts descend from above: as your limited power, justice, goodness, pity, and love come down from the infinite Supreme Power, Goodness, and Love above, “just as the rays come down from the sun, and the waters from the fountain.”

When your wife, child, or friend shows you kindness, that kindness is a direct ray of the Sun of God’s love touching your face; when you distribute money, time, or encouragement to others, you are simply a channel letting the Fountain flow through you.

Reflect on yourself and pray the Suscipe (“Take, Lord, and receive... Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is enough for me”) a fourth time.

Step 4 · Friend to Friend & Looking Back (15–20 Minutes)

Colloquy, Post-Prayer Review & Repetitions

1. The Colloquy (5 Minutes)

Finish with a quiet, unhurried Colloquy to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—repeating the Suscipe in your own words until your whole life feels like a single open-handed Yes of gratitude. Close with an Our Father.

2. The Post-Prayer Examen of Prayer (15 Minutes · Exx. 77)

After finishing the Our Father, remain quiet for ten to fifteen minutes (sitting or walking slowly) to examine how your prayer went. Ask: Where did my heart feel warmed, expanded, drawn to trust, or moved to tears (consolation)? Where did I feel dry, distracted, defensive, or negotiating with God (desolation or resistance)? Write down two or three honest sentences in your notebook.

3. Repetitions & Carrying the Mystery Through the Day

Notice how the Spiritual Exercises come full circle! You began in Step 2 (Principle and Foundation) seeing created things as tools to be held with indifference; now in Step 35 (Contemplation to Gain Love) you receive the whole created world back again—not as an idol to cling to, but as a transparent sacrament burning with the presence and labor of God (finding God in all things).

Primary Text · From St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises (Exx. 230–237)
[230] Note. First, it is proper to note two things: The first is that love ought to be put more in deeds than in words. [231] Second. The second, love consists in interchange between the two parties; that is to say in the lover's giving and communicating to the beloved what he has or out of what he has or can; and so, on the contrary, the beloved to the lover. [234] First Point... Then I will reflect on myself, considering with much reason and justice, what I ought on my side to offer and give to His Divine Majesty, that is to say, everything that is mine, and myself with it, as one who makes offerings with much affect, saying: Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my 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 enough for me. [236] Third Point. The third, to consider how God works and labors for me in all things created on the face of the earth, that is, behaves like one who labors; as in the heavens, elements, plants, fruits, cattle, etc., giving them being, preserving them, giving them vegetation and sensation, etc. Then to reflect on myself. [237] Fourth Point. The fourth, to look how all the good things and gifts descend from above, as my poor power from the supreme and infinite power above; and so justice, goodness, pity, mercy, etc.; as from the sun descend the rays, from the fountain the waters, etc. Then to finish, reflecting on myself, according as has been said. Let me finish with a Colloquy and an OUR FATHER.
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