“We love because God first loved us.” - 1 Jn 4:19

On Caritas, we’ve experienced some form of God’s love or grace. One of the most helpful habits to build upon grace is prayer. Spend some time in prayer once or twice a week using the following recommendations:

WEEK 1

Create a prayer center in your room with your Caritas candle, a cross, and anything else that helps you easily connect with God. Treat yourself to 10-15’ of prayer by:

  1. Focusing on your lit candle.

  2. Repeat out loud the mantra on your candle & pay attention to any memories or feelings that surface.

  3. Recall the moment at the Closing Mass when you blew out your candle & received God’s promise to give you the grace you need to live out the retreat.

  4. Have a heart-to-heart with God. Perhaps ask God, “Is there more you want to show me through my mantra?”

Bonus: Take a photo of your candle & post it on the private IG group chat.

WEEK 2

On Caritas, we chose to build community like no other. What a difference our choices made! Spend to 10-15’ of prayer by:

  1. Reflecting on your experience of community on Caritas as expressed by these phrases some of us wrote: I found a treasure ... given to me by an amazing sense of community … it was like coming home … to a place where I can be seen, connected, feel understood, accepted, and loved. How did you experience God or love through the Caritas community?

  2. Ask this question as you watch the video below: God, how can I choose to build genuine community today?

WEEK 3

On Caritas, guided prayer can help us get in touch with Divine presence and grow closer to God. Pray with one of the guided meditations below, especially the one(s) that were helpful to you. Revisiting an experience of prayer deepens grace and helps us receive what else God might have in store for us.

  1. Find a quiet prayer space and light a candle.

  2. Listen to the following guided meditation on the Baptism of Jesus. OR BELOW

  3. Click on THIS PLAYLIST on the Caritas Music YouTube channel. Choose a guided meditation to pray with.

  4. After your prayer, take a moment to journal about your prayer experience:

    • What surprises, challenges, or stays with you during the guided prayer? How so?

    • How might God be inviting you?

  5. For more Christus Ministries guided prayer recordings, click HERE.

After your prayer, take a moment to journal about your prayer experience.

  • What stays with you? What might have been challenging for you? How could God be inviting you?

WEEK 4

  • Read slowly the following prayer & write down the word(s) that inspires or challenges you.

  • Reflect: How do the word(s) stir you?

  • Pray: Ask God/Jesus, “What are you trying to reveal to me?”

  • Remain: Stay with or savor any connection that may come up with God/Jesus or yourself. Have a heart-to-heart with God/Jesus.

A PRAYER OF TRUST

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything,
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense, and incomplete.

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ