Gathering the Graces

This month’s blog series is “Gathering the Graces”. St. Ignatius invites us to ask God for a grace each time we pray. This month, blog contributors will share stories about the graces God has given them and where God is leading them.

This past week was a reminder of how much I need God’s grace as Louisiana braced for two hurricanes. Thankfully, Marco dissipated before making landfall. Laura hit the Southwestern part of Louisiana very hard. One way God’s grace becomes a reality is when we come together to support our neighbors. I am partnering with several parishes in the Diocese of Baton Rouge to offer support for those impacted by Hurricane Laura. Please visit the Helping Hands for Laura page to learn concrete ways we can help with immediate needs in Louisiana.

Grace plays a key role in our spiritual lives. What the heck is grace, though? I feel it is often a word that is thrown around without a clear understanding of what it means. We even sing amazing grace like we know what it means, but do we understand that grace is the building block of our present lives?

In our spiritual lives, grace is the way God reveals God’s self to us. It allows us to come to new understandings and insights about:

• God
• Jesus
• Holy Spirit
• Scripture
• Our Salvation History
• Our Faith
• Ourselves
• Others
• Our Sins
• Our Disordered Attachments
• Our Gifts
• Our Call

Grace is a deep infinite well that continues to invite us to explore new depths of our faith. Its existence is what propels us into new horizons in our relationship with God.

Naming the Grace I Seek:

St. Ignatius invites us to name the grace we seek at the start of every prayer time. Naming the grace we seek allows us to get in touch with what God might be offering us to learn more about.

Here is how we can do this at the beginning of each prayer time:

• Place yourself in the presence of God.
• Ask God: What is the grace I seek?
• Notice what word arises within you. It might be something such as rest, peace, clarity, courage, hope, light, love.
• When a word arises in your thoughts, turn this into a prayer. God as I begin, I seek the grace of _____.

Gathering the Graces:

St. Ignatius invites us to look back on our prayer, our week(s) and when we end a retreat to gather the graces God generously poured into us. I often invite people to “gather the graces” by reflecting on these questions:

• What graces did you receive?
• What are you thankful for?
• When did you experience consolation?
• When did you experience desolation?
• What do you now know that you didn’t understand before? (About God, yourself, your call, others, etc.?)

Praying for the Graces to Deepen Within Us:

Once we have named the graces God gave us, it is important to pray for the graces to deepen in us. We want the graces given to us to stay, to become part of who we are, and to transform us.

God’s generosity cannot be outdone. We will continue to receive grace upon grace as God invites us to new depths for the entirety of our lives.

An Invitation: Gather Your Graces

This coming month, the Into the Deep writers gather the graces of their lives. They will share what God is revealing to them.

I invite you to do the same.

As you look back on the past months or weeks, during this unexpected time of our lives, what are the graces you received? What might God be revealing to you in light of what you named?

JOIN ME! Overwhelmed No More: A 6 Week Self-Paced Retreat in Daily Life -

This unique self-paced online discernment retreat, based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, provides an individual retreat experience, one you can take at your own pace.

Drawing on the promises of God found in scripture and the wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola, this retreat seeks to answer: How do we settle our scattered minds and hear God’s voice and call when everything competes for our attention?

Going Deeper:

• Gather the graces of your last months using the “Sense-Making” Prayer Guide created by Becky Eldredge and Stephanie Clouatre Davis
• Book recommendations on Grace from our Into the Deep Writers:

• [A New Look at Grace](https://amzn.to/4fpBEKw) by Bill Heubsch 

• [Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination](https://amzn.to/3O7ztPX) by Mary Catherine Hilkert, OP. 

• [The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and “Women’s Work” ](https://amzn.to/40Q8qAg)by Kathleen Norris

• [Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith](https://amzn.to/40PszGl) by Kathleen Norris

• [Circle of Grace](https://amzn.to/40QxhDQ) by Jan Richardson

• [To Bless the Space Between Us](https://amzn.to/4evShCX) by John O’Donohue

• [Devotions](https://amzn.to/4fRQidz) by Mary Oliver

• [Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God](https://amzn.to/4hNirUJ) by Rainer Maria Rilke

• [God’s Voice Within](https://amzn.to/4exhsoE) by Mark Thibodeaux, S.J.

• [Reimagining the Ignatian Examen](https://amzn.to/48UDnoY) by Mark Thibodeaux, S.J.

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash.

Becky Eldredge

Becky is an Ignatian-trained spiritual director, retreat facilitator, and writer. She is the author of the Busy Lives and Restless Souls (March 2017, Loyola Press) and The Inner Chapel (April 2020, Loyola Press). She helps others create space to connect faith and everyday life through facilitating retreats and days of reflection, through writing, and through spiritual direction. With nearly twenty years of ministry experience within the Catholic Church, Becky seeks to help others discover God at work in the every day moments of people’s lives by utilizing St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises and the many gifts that our Catholic faith and Ignatian Spirituality provide.