EARLY IN HIS SPIRITUAL EXERCISES IGNATIUS INVITES US TO REFLECT on the Principle and Foundation, which we will do now.

God freely created us so that we might know, love and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God’s purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. All things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully. As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us towards our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created things hinder our progress towards our goal, we ought to let go of them. In everyday life, then, we should keep ourselves indifferent or undecided in the face of all created gifts when we have an option and we do not have the clarity of what would be a better choice. We ought not be led on by our natural likes and dislikes even in matters such as health or sickness, wealth or poverty, between living in the east or in the west, becoming an accountant or a lawyer, and so on. Rather, our only desire and our one choice should be that option which better leads us to our goal for which God created us.

My Principle and Foundation

This prayer will help me to tap into the big desires of my heart, starting with the desire to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord and to have Jesus as my intimate companion. My prayer time should be grounded in my longing to be with Christ—to love him, to praise him, to serve him.

• In prayer, I will recall my early experiences of Christ calling me to His side and of my responses to that call. I will prayerfully remember the moment I committed my life to Him in some concrete way, through moments of conversion, through a retreat or religious ceremony that moved me, through receiving one of the Sacraments for the first time, through setting out to accomplish a momentous life goal such as learning a particular trade, through committing my life to my spouse or professing vows in a religious order. I sit quietly and relish these memories. I gratefully praise and reverence God for these life-changing moments.
• Steeped in gratitude for God’s mercy and call, I will ask myself the BIG life questions: What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of my life? What is it that gets me out of bed every morning? When I am old and near death what sort of life would I be proud and happy to look back on?
• Perhaps two or three words or phrases will arise as I ponder these big questions, words like service, love, family, loyalty, God’s glory, ultimate sacrifice, affirmation, saying yes, new beginnings, change for the better, fatherhood/ motherhood, brotherhood/sisterhood, single-minded, true friend, faithful spouse, devotion, and so on.
• I will take these words and phrases and will set down my own Principle and Foundation, my own Mission Statement. With paper and pen I will articulate what I believe is my reason for being. I will begin as Ignatius did, setting down the purpose for which God has created me. I will write, “God has created me to….”
• I will move from this most basic statement to more particular and concrete vocations. In my own Jesuit life, for example, I would begin with expressions of love and service to God and then move to my particular life vocations: the Jesuits, the priesthood, writing, teaching, the formation of youth and beginners in religious life. If I were a layperson, I might begin with expressions of love and service of God and then move to my vocations as spouse and parent. My vocation to provide for my family leads me to my work as a lawyer. My vocation to teach my children the Faith leads me to my vocation as church member. And so on. For each of these vocations I will recall the moment God called me and the moment I said yes. Then I will articulate each of these vocations just behind my “God has created me to…” statement.

Writing in your journal “God has created me to…

[1] This prayer is taken from the book, God’s Voice within: Ignatian Intuition in Everyday Life by Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ.