This post is based on Week Seven of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.
In the Third Week of the Spiritual Exercises, we meditate on the Passion of Jesus and pray for the grace to accompany Jesus in his suffering. Fr. Kevin O’Brien, SJ, explains:
[Jesus] was faithful to the mission of the Kingdom of God, that reign of justice, peace, and love, and he stayed to the end—to the Cross—because love does not run. And we don’t run. We accompany him. We stick by him, and we learn from him. We learn what compassion is really about, not just sympathy, but real compassion.
O’Brien is the author of The Ignatian Adventure: Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius in Daily Life and Seeing with the Heart: A Guide to Navigating Life’s Adventures.