“On a recent retreat, in light of being ordained for one year now, I sort of re-discovered the Suscipe as both the beginning and the end of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Ignatius writes in the Annotations at the beginning of the text that a person on retreat will ‘benefit greatly’ by entering into the retreat with a great spirit of generosity towards God, so that God can move that person in whichever way God wants. This phrase struck me, because God is so generous to me in the first place – what could God really want with my generosity, which is so limited? This thought moved me so much that I actually started to spontaneously make myself more available to God on that retreat, and also in the weeks afterward in my daily life. I started praying ‘Take, Lord, receive’ with more abandon and less and less concern about how I would “benefit” from it. And that was the benefit!
- Fr. Chris Hadley, SJ
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“Not too long ago, I came across a prayer written in the twelfth century by St. Anselm of Canterbury that resembles the Suscipe attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Anselm’s prayer ends: Do yourself in kindness dispose of me, / my thoughts and actions, according to your good pleasure, / so that your will may always be done / by me and in me and concerning me. Perhaps St. Ignatius also came across this prayer and copied it into his notebook as he sometimes did. I smiled as I imagined him making this prayer his own. It is a good one. However, there is a fundamental difference between the two prayers. St. Anselm’s prayer is one of contrition, whereas I pray Saint Ignatius’ Suscipe most often as a prayer of thanksgiving. It expresses well my response to God’s presence in my life, all the ways that He labors for me and the good things that descend from above like rays that come down from the sun. I desire to return to God everything that I am able to give because I am thankful. In this way, I pray the prayer of St. Ignatius when I pray the Suscipe.”
- Michael Laveson, SJ