(P&F = Principal and Foundation) Lord, please enter this moment of meditation, and guide my thoughts. Enlighten me as I go along this path.
I was given the assignment to:
[P]rayerfully read the traditional translation of the Principal and Foundation of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Ask: How do I concretely praise, love, and serve God? What activities, people, or material things help me achieve this end?
Lord, the first time I read this page I was a bit defensive. I have got a history of being a health-nut at times, where I spent a lot of time and energy on dieting and exercise. Reading a lot of books, and articles (scientific and lay), and doing a lot of my own experimentation. I've also spent a lot of time defending what I've discovered and what I know and understand as it pertains to health.
Dieting, in particular, is a funny thing. It is something that is actually not as well understood by the scientific community as people often believe, and therefore it's something that not all of us non-scientists can understand entirely well. Thus, it is hotly debatable. So, while my intentions have been good, and I never meant to entrench myself into a position, I've nonetheless found myself on many occasions defending my views on health. Whether that is what I wanted to do, I've backed myself into a prideful corner on the topic.
Therefore when I read, "....we are not to seek health rather than sickness....." I got defensive. My fur had been stroked backwards, so to speak. But as I sat with the page of the spiritual exercise, I realized that I've already been moving closer to the point of the larger statement on the page for a while, and I've been asking You to help me do so, Lord. I have been asking You to let me know how I can serve You, and You've been presenting me with concrete opportunities.
The point of the not seeking health rather than sickness bit isn't saying I shouldn't be healthy, or that I shouldn't put any effort toward maintaining or even regaining some lost health if that's what's necessary. Rather, it's saying that I need to seek to align all of my resources, to include anything I expend on my health, behind the greater themes of praising, loving and serving You, Lord. So, as an example, if my current state of health has me un-energetic feeling, and I'm unable to sustain the level of effort needed to adequately do my duties as a father, husband, employee, and men's group leader.....the things which go into serving You, Lord, then with haste I should figure out how to arrange my life where I can get the time and/or clarity in to increase my physical activity, and/or improve my diet.
How do I concretely praise, love, and serve God? What activities, people, or material things help me achieve this end?
Lord, before I can answer that, I need to understand what praise actually is. According to James V. Schall, S.J.,
"[Praise is] the free acknowledgement that something that is glorious in fact is acknowledged to be glorious. 'To praise' means that he who praises has some basic understanding that what is praised is worthy of honor."*
Or from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2639 Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for His own sake and gives Him glory, quite beyond what He does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing Him in glory.
Lord, only recently have I even begun to understand You. I came to this understanding through You allowing me to understand Your Mercy's role in my life. It's a necessity. It's almost as if that flash of understanding unlocked an understanding of the whole universe. Not of the science, but of the meaning, and awesomeness. And the unfathomable awesomeness of its Creator. And the unfathomable love and mercy of its Creator, that He should bother to desire my love. He who created the infinitely small, and the infinitely large. Who created leptons, and quarks, and whatever may be below or in front of those. He who created supernovas, and volcanoes, and nebulae, and the ever-expanding edges of the cosmos, doesn't simply bother to care about me. He humbled and continues to humble Himself that I may care for Him.
God, You became us that we may be saved, and a necessary part of that salvific process is to praise You. Lord, how do I do that? Do I do that? Lord, please give me the courage and strength to hear and use an honest answer to that question.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.