A Sacred Journey

practicing pilgrimage at home and abroad

Spiritual Formation Archives

Spiritual formation is a lifelong journey of drawing closer to the True Self and the Divine, with spiritual practices offering both scaffolding and a firm foundation for the search. Find posts on spiritual formation below, explore specific spiritual practices on the resources page, and sign up here to receive updates on new posts directly in your inbox.

Want to Learn More About Celtic Spirituality? 7 Books to Get You Started

Since returning from Iona, I’ve had Celtic spirituality on the mind.

And what better season to explore Celtic spirituality, really, than in Eastertide? The Christian stream of this ancient way of encountering the Divine highlights the life-giving themes of Easter through its emphasis on experiencing God through creation (the living example of death and renewal) and prepares us for the season of Ordinary Time to come by focusing on the sacredness of everyday life.

If you’d like to learn more about Celtic spirituality, here are 7 books to get you started from my very own bookshelf:

read more »

How to Pray the Hours

The time is drawing near; Easter is nearly here.

But first, we must eat with Jesus in the Upper Room, pray with him in the garden, follow him to the court of Pontias Pilate,  watch as he is crucified, and keep vigil as we wait for resurrection. As we enter the throes of Holy Week, what better way to pray than with the hours?

Scripture invites us to do just that, outlining in great detail each event of Jesus’ final days, allowing us to fully enter the scene as we keep watch and wait for the most powerful story to unfold. For our final spiritual practice in the Lent 40 Days to Pray series, I invite you to join me in praying the hours in these last few days of Lent, whether you follow along with the liturgy of the Church (find resources below) or keep vigil with the gospel of your choice.

Easter isn’t the same without the descent that comes before it, and I have a feeling praying the hours during these final days and keeping vigil with Christ and his Church will leave you transformed.

Have you followed along with the 40 Days to Pray series during the season of Lent? I’d love your feedback. Fill out my survey here and let me know what else you’d like to see!

ABOUT PRAYING THE HOURS

The Liturgy of the Hours is a rhythm of public or personal prayer set to specific hours of the day, an opportunity to regularly pause and sanctify the day with spiritual practice. Birthed out of the Jewish tradition, the practice of praying the hours can be found throughout the Psalms, where Psalmists proclaim, “Seven times a day I praise you” (Psalm 119:164), “At midnight I will rise and thank you,” (Psalm 119:162), and “In the morning I will offer you my prayer” (Psalm 5:3).

The early Christians carried on this tradition (Acts 10:3, 9; 16:25), and with the rise of the Roman empire, the hours of prayer began to coincide with the hours of the bell that rang to mark the work day at 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, and 6pm. The Church Fathers continued the practice with morning and evening prayers, and the Desert Mothers and Fathers, who were the founders of the monastic tradition, followed a similar liturgy of the hours to help them to “pray without ceasing.”

In the sixth century, St Benedict (there he is again!) formalized the practice by naming each hour, and it has since formed the basis of prayer for many monastics as well as those in religious life. The day begins with Matins or Vigils (midnight to dawn), followed by Prime (originally at 3am, but since omitted), Lauds or Morning Prayer (dawn), Terce or the third hour of the day (referring to daylight, usually around midmorning), Sext or the six hour (noon), None or the ninth hour (mid afternoon), Vespers or Evensong (twilight), and Compline or Night Prayer (before retiring, around 9pm).

Practitioners follow a breviary—a collection of Psalms, prayers, hymns, Scripture readings, and antiphons (responsive chants), the most widely known being the Book of Common Prayer within the Anglican Communion (containing the Daily Office) and the Divine Office within the Catholic church. Today many independent breviaries are being published that follow specific themes, including special editions for the sister seasons of Advent and Christmas and Lent and Easter, as well as volumes drawing from Celtic spirituality or the rhythms of the seasons of the earth. Such guides serve as a way for practitioners to make the practice their own, providing simple ways to gather in intention with a communion of believers far and wide and continually return to the presence of the Divine throughout the day and remember what it is that we seek.

HOW TO PRAY THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS

  1. Set a daily rhythm. You might want to simply start with a morning and evening office each day, or follow the rhythms of the early Christians by praying at 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, and 6pm. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are natural times to pause and pray. Or, you can go all out by following the full liturgy, from Matins or Vigils in the hours between midnight to dawn to Compline or Night Prayer as darkness takes over.
  2. Choose a guide. You could keep it simple by reciting a prayer and reading a Psalm, keep things classic by following the liturgy of the church or another breviary (a collection outlining the service for each day—see my favorites below), or you could get creative and make your own.
  3. Show up. If you’re praying throughout the day, set an alarm on your phone to serve as a call to prayer. It might also be a good idea to notify family members and coworkers of your intention, so they can honor your time. Who knows? Perhaps they might even decide to join you!

GO FURTHER…

Resources About Praying the Hours
Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day by Macrina Wiederkehr
In Constant Prayer by Robert Benson

Resources for Praying the Hours
Divine Hours (online)
Daily Office (online)
Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove
The Divine Hours series by Phyllis Tickle
Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbria Community
Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace by John Philip Newell
Book of Common Prayer (Anglican Communion)
Liturgy of the Hours (Roman Catholic church)

Have you followed along with the 40 Days to Pray series during the season of Lent? I’d love your feedback. Fill out my survey here and let me know what else you’d like to see!

 

How to Pray the Examen

As we round the corner into Holy Week, it’s time to look back.

So far in the Lent 40 Days to Pray series we’ve explored Welcoming Prayer, Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, Breath Prayer, and praying with Prayer Beads. It’s been quite the journey so far, with each prayer practice progressively guiding us along the path in our Lenten pilgrimage. With Lent soon drawing to a close, this week we’ll be praying the Ignatian practice Examen. Let’s review (seriously—that’s the practice!):

ABOUT THE EXAMEN

The Examen is a practice and prayer of discernment developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. A sixteenth century priest and spiritual director, St. Ignatius founded the religious order called the Society of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits. (The most well-known Jesuit today? Pope Francis.) One of the greatest legacies of St. Ignatius is his Spiritual Exercises, a treatise published in 1548 and a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices to help seekers deepen their spiritual journey and relationship with the Divine.

One of the greatest gifts the Spiritual Exercises offer is their emphasis on interior reflection and what St. Ignatius called the “discernment of spirits” or the “motions of the soul.” While St. Ignatius was referring to the impulses of the heart toward good or evil, today we recognize them more as “spirits” because of the spiritual nature of the struggle. This struggle plays out in our everyday thoughts, feelings, imaginings, emotions, desires, and resistances, each tending to influence our level of intimacy with God.

To discern between those that are “evil” and those that are “good,” St. Ignatius invites practitioners to consider areas of consolation, which bring us close to God and our true selves, and desolation, which take us further away. Thoughts and emotions that offer consolation energize and inspire us, providing a sense of rootedness and clarity that deepens our connection with the world around us and allows us to look outside beyond ourselves, revealing where God is at work. On the contrary, thoughts and emotions that are desolate in nature drain us of energy and cloud our internal compass, turning us in on ourselves and disconnecting us with our community and the ways God is at work around us as we spiral deeper into cycles of negativity and despair.

While the discernment of spirits and the naming of areas of consolation and desolation runs throughout the Spiritual Exercises, the Examen offers a structured way to pray through these areas and invite God to breathe insight into your thoughts, emotions, and actions, offering guidance each day. As you begin to name your experiences, bringing them out of the shadows of the past and into the light, the Examen will help to return you to your intention, reminding you what it is you seek and utilizing wisdom from past experiences to light the path ahead.

HOW TO PRACTICE THE EXAMEN

  1. Choose a time. Because the Examen focuses on reviewing the past, it is typically practiced at the end of the day. However, it could also be practiced first thing in the morning as you review the previous day and prepare for the day ahead, or even on a larger scale, such as at the end of a retreat, liturgical season, or calendar year.
  2. Become aware of God’s presence. Set the scene by lighting a candle or reading a prayer or poem and then settle in with silence and stillness as you sink into the presence of the Divine.
  3. Review your day. Beginning at the start of your day, review the events that have passed, with gratitude for the gift of life.
    Pay attention to the thoughts and emotions that arise. As you review the events of the day, pay attention to the memories that come to the surface. When did you feel consolation? When did you feel desolation?
  4. Seek insight. Lean into an area of desolation that feels especially significant, bringing it into the light through conversation with the Divine and asking for wisdom and guidance.
  5. Look ahead. With gratitude for the insight you have received, look prayerfully ahead with clarity and hope for tomorrow.

GO FURTHER…

Reimagining the Examen app
The Discernment of Spirits from ignatianspirituality.com
Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn
A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer: Discovering the Power of St. Ignatius Loyola’s Examen by Jim Manney

How to Use Prayer Beads

I’ve just returned from Iona where I led 10 pilgrims around the Sacred Isle so often referred to as a “thin place.”

As I settle back in at home, I’ve been embracing our recent practice of Breath Prayer in the Lent 40 Days to Pray series to help center me as I return to my everyday life. (We practiced it on Iona, too!) This week we turn to praying with Prayer Beads—a practice close to those of us who journeyed to Iona as we carried our own Iona-inspired prayer beads with us, allowing the words of St. Columba and the wisdom of the Celtic Christian tradition to guide us along the path. (Get an Iona-inspired set of your own, available in the Journey Shop for the season of Lent).

I included Prayer Beads in the Pilgrim Pack for my Iona pilgrims because I love the way the repetition of the prayers and the touch of the beads helps usher me into the presence of God in body, mind, and soul—so essential for the pilgrim’s journey, whether at home or abroad. Here’s more on the practice of praying with Prayer Beads and instructions on how you can join in, too.

ABOUT PRAYER BEADS

Beads have been used as tools for spiritual practice for millennia and across multiple faith traditions, drawing seekers closer to the Divine with each bead touched and prayer offered. They are perhaps most used as a somatic aid during prayer, some of the commonly recognized prayer beads being mala beads, used by Buddhists and Hindus, and rosaries, used by Catholics. In fact, at least in the English language, the words “bead” and “prayer” are connected—the word “bead” comes from the anglo-saxon bede, meaning prayer.

Even the Desert Mothers and Fathers used a tangible object similar in shape to a bead as a vehicle for prayer, carrying pebbles in their pockets and dropping them as each prayer was released.

Today, the practice of praying with beads has become available to all through the development of Anglican prayer beads, developed in the 1980s by an Episcopal priest from Texas. A group of contemplative practitioners in the priest’s church had been praying the rosary, but when they wanted a practice that was more experimental, the priest decided to devise a set—and a practice—of his own. Studying the prayer beads of various traditions and hoping to develop a practice that might act as a bridge between the Eastern and Western Church, the priest modeled his Anglican prayer beads after the Orthodox Jesus Prayer Rope and the Roman Catholic Rosary while also allowing it to remain distinct.

Anglican prayer beads are made up 33 beads, a number which calls to mind the age of Christ when he was crucified. These beads are separated by a varying number of spacer beads. There are two sections of the prayer beads—the stem and the circle of prayer. The stem, which consists of a charm and the invitatory bead, is where the prayer begins and ends. The main part of the prayer is recited in the second section of the prayer beads—a circle made up of four sets of week beads containing seven beads each (a holy number harkening back to the days of creation) divided by four cruciform beads which form a cross. These four beads can also represent the four gospels, the four seasons, the four directions, or the four parts of the self—body, mind, spirit, and soul.

Each type of bead is assigned a particular prayer:

charm
A cross or alternative symbol with spiritual significance used when beginning and ending the prayer.

invitatory bead
A single bead on the stem located between the charm and the first cruciform bead. When beginning, the invitatory bead serves as a call to prayer, stating the intention of your practice, and is oftentimes a verse of Scripture or inspirational phrase. When closing, it serves as a benediction and can be used to recite the Lord’s Prayer, spend time in personal prayer, or end with more words of inspiration.

cruciforms
Four beads spaced evenly throughout the circle of prayer that form a cross. The cruciform beads are connected to a repeated phrase that aligns with the desire of your heart and the theme of your prayer and can also be used for the prayers of the people, assigning a different category to each bead (prayers for the Church, prayers for the nation, prayers for the world, prayers for those who suffer, etc.).

weeks
Four sets of seven beads set in between the four cruciform beads. The week beads are the heart of the prayer and are used with a phrase you desire to repeat multiple times or an entire phrase spread across one week (seven beads) or even the entire set of four weeks (twenty-eight beads).

HOW TO PRAY USING PRAYER BEADS

  1. Begin at the charm with an invocation.
  2. Move to the invitatory bead, reciting the words that will serve as your call to prayer.
  3. Follow the invitatory bead to the first cruciform bead, reciting for the first time the phrase you will return to at each cruciform bead throughout your time of prayer.
  4. Move slowly along the week beads, calling to mind the prayer assigned for each one. You may go around this circle of prayer one time or many.
  5. Return to the invitatory bead when you are ready to end your prayer, reciting your chosen benediction.
  6. Close the prayer as desired on the charm.

You can use prayers collected specifically for prayer beads or develop your own from your favorite Psalms, quotes, hymns, and passages of Scripture. Download a PDF of four prayers created to be used with prayer beads on the resources page or purchase pocket-sized prayer bead prayer cards in the Journey Shop.

Don’t have your own set of prayer beads? Start with a beaded necklace or bracelet that you have at home. While having different types of beads to represent the different parts of each prayer is valuable, just moving your fingers from one bead to the next can still help facilitate the meditative somatic state that so many prayer bead practitioners have come to love.

You can also purchase your own set of prayer beads from The Journey Shop. Each set in the Journey Shop is designed to be worn on your wrist so your prayers can accompany you throughout your day. The limited edition set inspired by Iona is only available during the season of Lent and stock is running low!

GO FURTHER…

Bead One, Pray Too: A Guide to Making and Using Prayer Beads by Kimberly Winston
A Bead and a Prayer: A Beginner’s Guide to Protestant Prayer Beads by Kristen E. Vincent
Another Bead, Another Prayer: Devotions to Use with Protestant Prayer Beads by Kristen E. Vincent
Praying with Beads: Daily Prayers for the Christian Year by Nan Lewis Doerr and Virginia Stem Owens
A String and a Prayer: How to Make and Use Prayer Beads by Eleanor Wiley and Maggie Oman Shannon

How to Practice Breath Prayer

We’re halfway through our 40 Days to Pray contemplative prayer series and nearly halfway through the season of Lent.

How are things going so far? It’s amazing that even though we’re devoting a week to each practice, moving through at this pace can feel like a whirlwind. Such is the nature of contemplative prayer—it takes time to sink in, time to savor, and time to transform. But that time is worth it, because it brings us to the time of the present/presence and the time beyond time known as kairos where heaven is near and Sacred Encounter is around every corner.

Now that we’ve practiced Welcoming Prayer, Centering Prayer, and Lectio Divina, let’s pause in the middle and take a breath, shall we?

HOW TO PRACTICE BREATH PRAYER

Though not a well-known practice, Breath Prayer is shaped by the action most essential to our lives: our very breath. It is our first action on the day we are born and our final act on the day that we die. Breath plays a central role in Scripture, too, from the very beginning in which God breathes life into human form and throughout the text, which Paul describes in 2 Timothy as “God-breathed.” Even the words for “spirit” in Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma)—the two languages in which the Bible was originally written—can also mean “breath.” It seems breath is not only essential to our physical existence but our spiritual nourishment, too.

The Breath Prayer that we know today originated with the Desert Mothers and Fathers as a way to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Considered foundational to contemplation and a way to cultivate silence and attention, the Desert Mothers and Fathers would take a short excerpt of Scripture, breathing in with the first part of the text and breathing out with the next, repeating this pattern for extended periods of time. While any text would do, the most common Scripture used for Breath Prayer became “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” echoing the petition made by the tax collector in Luke 18:13.

Over time the text and the prayer that accompanies it became known as the “Jesus Prayer” or “Prayer of the Heart” in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, shortening to “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” or even simply “Jesus, mercy.” Breath Prayer, too, began to expand beyond the use of Scriptures, becoming a way to invoke the name of God and ask for help in just a few short words.

With the scientific knowledge we have today on mindfulness and the effectiveness of deep breathing on the body, mind, and soul, it’s no wonder that this form of prayer gently but surely transformed those who practiced it. Science tells us that our brains are constantly transforming and are shaped by what we focus on. For example, while anxiety begets anxiety, focusing on peace can lead to a sense of peace. We also know that deep breathing directly impacts the part of the brain where stress dwells, encouraging our nervous system to slow down and eventually melt into the present moment.

When we combine the positive reinforcement of the mind through a meditative phrase with the deep breathing that relaxes the body and centers the soul, we become less reactive and more receptive to the presence of God in us and in the world. Breath Prayer is indeed a holistic practice for body, mind, and soul, and as it clears the path for you to abide in Christ (the very union of the spiritual and the physical) it also makes space within for Christ to dwell in you. As you cultivate your practice you’ll likely find that even when your prayer has finished, the effects of the prayer will remain, your sense of God’s presence as close to you as your very breath.

HOW TO PRACTICE BREATH PRAYER

Breath Prayer is as informal as they come, requiring only a simple phrase and the breath you carry with you every moment throughout the day. While it is undoubtedly valuable when practiced in silence and solitude for an extended period of time (scientists say that 12 minutes of deep breathing each day is enough to transform the mind—set a soothing timer using the Insight Timer app), it can also be practiced during everyday tasks, such as washing the dishes or commuting to work, allowing even the most mundane moments of the day to be whitewashed with the Sacred.

  1. Choose a phrase. It can be a verse from the Bible or a line of praise and petition (one common formula is a name for God followed by your desire, such as “Spirit, peace”). You could also use the inward breath to name what you would like to receive and the outward breath to state what you would like to release. (Guideposts offers some simple phrases echoing Scripture here, as does RethinkChurch.)
  2. Breathe in and out, with the first part of your prayer coming to mind on the inward breath and the latter half connecting with the outward breath.
  3. Continue your prayer for a set period of time or until you feel you have reached a sense of inner stillness as you dwell in the presence of God.

GO FURTHER…

Breath Prayer Brings God Into the Body from NACC
Holy Listening with Breath, Body, and Spirit by Whitney R. Simpson
Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer by Norris Chumley

Learn more about connecting the body with spiritual practice in Christine Valters Paintner’s new book, The Wisdom of the Body.

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