1st DAY
OPENING PRAYER (ALL): Lord, teach us to be generous. Teach us to love you and serve you as you deserve. To give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to look for reward, save that of knowing that we do your most holy will.
DEEP PERSONAL LOVE FOR JESUS CHRIST (PRIEST): One quality that characterised the life of St. Ignatius above all others was his deep personal life for the person of Jesus Christ. Ignatius was so taken up with Christ that he was willing to do anything, go anywhere, and be anyone as long as he could imitate Christ.
(ALL): Father in heaven; give us today the same grace that Ignatius received – to know Jesus intimately – to love him more dearly – and to follow him more closely. Help us to remember that with Jesus as our model – we may be able to reveal him – in all we say and all we do. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
CLOSING PRAYER (ALL): Take Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will. You have given them to me, to you I return them. Give me only your love and your grace that is enough for me.
AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM
2nd DAY
CONTEMPLATION IN ACTION (PRIEST): While Ignatius recommends setting aside time for prayer and communion with the Lord, in his personal life, prayer was never separated from action. There was a constant interplay between experience, reflection, decision and action, in line with the ideal of being a contemplative in action like Jesus himself was.
(ALL): God our Lord, help us to realise the importance of prayer in our lives. May prayer be our first and last recourse. Let our prayer be such that it will strengthen us and lead us to affirmative action. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
3rd DAY
LISTENING TO AND WAITING FOR THE LORD (PRIEST): Though Ignatius was in constant and close touch with the Lord, he never presumed to tell the Lord what to do. Rather, like an attentive student before his Master, he was always listening and discerning what the Lord wanted him to do.
(ALL): Lord, sometimes we get impatient and want today’s answers yesterday and tomorrow’s answers today. You ask us to be patient, because our ways are not your ways and our time is not your time. Gift us with patience and the ability to listen to your voice. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen
4th DAY
TOTAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE CHURCH (PRIEST): St. Ignatius regarded the Church as a mother even though during his time there were many abuses in the Church. He never considered himself an outsider, an armchair critic, but actively went about trying to reform the Church from within.
(ALL): Triune God, Father, Son and Spirit we pray that the unity that you share may be the same unity that we feel. Give us all the grace to know that we are all parts of one body, the Body of Christ. May our concern for others be genuine and our love for the poor tangible. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
5th DAY
IN SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE MOST IN NEED (PRIEST): Though from an affluent family himself, Ignatius deliberately chose the path of poverty in order to experience first-hand what the poor went through. This enabled him to reach out to them in a practical and tangible manner.
(ALL): God of all that is visible and invisible, we ask that we may not let things control or use us. Let our possessions not take such a hold of us that we find it difficult to let go. Let us know deep in our heart that all is temporary and passing and that you alone are permanent and everlasting. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen
6th DAY
THAT THEY MAY ALL BE ONE (PRIEST): St. Ignatius was a great believer in Unity even in diversity. This is evident from the first companions he chose. These were men from different backgrounds, different experiences and gifts, but moulded by him into one Society of Love.
(ALL): Father, Son and Spirit, living in a multi-religious and multi-cultural country, let us learn to accept and appreciate the goodness in other faiths and cultures. Let us not be parochial or narrow-minded but bless us instead with a broad vision. We pray for the grace to reveal Jesus in such a manner that our brothers and sisters of other faiths will be drawn to Him, who is all and in all. Amen.
7th DAY
IGNATIAN INDIFFERENCE (PRIEST): For Ignatius, indifference was a means to reach the higher goal or the greater good, and so Ignatius would be indifferent to success or failure, riches or poverty, good health or sickness in order to achieve the greater good, which was always the greater glory of God.
(ALL): Father, we often get disappointed when things do not go our way. We sometimes give in to despair and lose hope. Gift us with the gift of Ignatian indifference so that we may be able to accept everything that happens to us as your will in our lives. Let us learn to be content in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, all the days of our lives. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
8th DAY
EVER SEARCHING FOR THE MAGIS (PRIEST): The entire life of St. Ignatius was a pilgrim search for the Magis, the ever-greater glory of God, the ever-fuller service of men and women, the more universal good, the more effective apostolic means. The Magis was not simply one among others in a list of the qualities of St. Ignatius – it permeated them all.
(ALL): God of all creation, we often tend to let things slide and so become complacent and self-satisfied. We give in to the sin of mediocrity and are content with the status quo. We prefer the tried and tested ways and are afraid to try the new. We are afraid to make changes because of the fear of change. Give us the grace to strive always to make the good, better; the better, better still and the better still, still better. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
9th DAY
Tomorrow, we will celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. For the last eight days, we have been praying that through his intercession we might obtain various graces to live more fully our own lives as individuals and as a community. Today, on the last day of the Novena, we make our own, the prayer of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, himself a former General of the Society of Jesus:
“Lord, meditating on ‘our way of proceeding’, I have discovered that the ideal way of acting is your way of acting. Give me that sensus Christi that I may feel with your feelings, with the sentiments of your heart, which basically are love for your Father and love for all men and women. Teach me how to be compassionate to the suffering, the poor, the blind, the lame and lepers. Teach us your way so that it becomes our way today, so that we may come closer to the great ideal of St. Ignatius; to be companions of Jesus, collaborators in the work of redemption.”
Through the intercession of St. Ignatius, we pray for the grace to make Jesus’ way of proceeding our way of proceeding, his way of acting our way of acting. Amen.