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TO SEE ALL THINGS NEW IN CHRIST

Community Prayers and Reflections for the Ignatian Year 2021-2022

INTRODUCTION

The title of this book, “To see all things new in Christ”, is the motto and theme of the Ignatian Year 2021-2022.

The topics for the Community Prayer Services are drawn from the Letter of the Superior General, Father Arturo Sosa SJ, urging “to remember that privileged moment when the Holy Spirit inspired Ignatius of Loyola in his decision to follow Christ, and to deepen our understanding of this pilgrim way in order to ‘draw fruit’ from it.”

The theme of ‘conversion’ is central to the Ignatian Year. We would do well to “hear the Lord calling us, and allow him to work our conversion inspired by the personal experience of Ignatius.” Sosa also specifies the need of linking the theme to the four dimensions of our Universal Apostolic Preferences.

The narratives from the early part of the Autobiography presented in this book serve as mirrors in which we find our own reflections; and the anecdotes are lenses that enable us ‘to see all things new in Christ’. They enable us to perceive at some length the circumstances associated with Ignatius’ conversion.

On previewing this work, John Dardis SJ commented: "You have made an amazing integration of the Ignatian sources; of the different comments of successive Father Generals; of comments on Ignatius and on the First Companions...”

The 24 units in this off-beat book integrate reflections with prayers. They contain four “I’s” - eyes! - that focus on the theme: Invocation, Ignatiana, Inspiration, Intercession. They are relatively short, providing each community at prayer the scope for incorporating hymns or relevant inputs, or allowing space for extended periods of reflection during the pauses. The first section of nine chapters could be used as a novena.

Father Sosa’s ‘message’ to a group of Jesuits, sums up the ‘fruit’ we can draw from this graced Year: “[I] hope that the spiritual experience proposed by the Ignatian Year would allow for a renewal of interior freedom and indifference. That it would be an opportunity for the recognition of our weaknesses, and that it would give us an incentive to identify more strongly with the Jesus of the Gospel in order to imitate him, thus responding to the Lord’s call.”^61C

We hope “To See All Things New In Christ” will be a source of “spiritual conversion”, after the example of our Father Ignatius, and will be helpful not only to Jesuits but also to all those associated with Ignatian spirituality for prayer in common as well as personal reflection. AMDG!

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