Forty Weeks ~ Daily Spiritual Record Book: Classic Edition

St. Ignatius used what he called a “marking system” and a spiritual journal to keep track of spiritual movements for his practice of the Examen. It is a helpful discipline that enabled him to “measure” both spiritual growth and the movements of consolation and desolation in his spiritual life. This Spiritual Record Book is to be used to keep track of the spiritual disciplines associated with Sacred Story Prayer in Forty Weeks. The first fifteen weeks you are simply keeping track of the offering of your day and night to the Lord and something that both increased and decreased your “faith, hope and love” (if you can recall something from the day). This second practice is the important beginning of spiritual attention to your interior life. When you begin Part Two and start the practice of the Sacred Story prayer version of the Examen, you are adding spiritual disciplines to your day. You have the option now of noting what you complete or don’t compete each day. You should not feel discouraged if you don’t complete all the disciplines in a single day. Instead, use a review process to see what you are and are not doing. This can help you find a way to monitor how to be more faithful to the spiritual disciplines which are all geared to help you awaken to your own sacred story and your interior spiritual world. Writing daily in the Spiritual Record Book also can help you keep faithful to the spiritual disciplines. Practice makes perfect! Fr. Bill Watson, S.J.