Conclusion: Setting Captives Free

1.  What spiritual understanding have you gained from this study?

2.  How has your awareness of your own interior spiritual experience grown as a result?

3.  Which rule do you find the most beneficial?

4.  How will you continue to apply Ignatius' teachings?

Chapter 14: Strengthening the Weak Point (Rule 14)

1.  Using Fr. Gallagher's questions in the first paragraph of page 182, determine the weakest point in your spiritual life.  How has the same old spiritual problem (aka root sin) "dressed up a bit differently perhaps" manifest itself in your life?

2.  What practical steps can you take to strengthen this area?

3.  Review the theological, cardinal and moral virtues (CCC 1803-1845) are there other areas of weakness to be addressed?  Where are your natural strongholds?

4.  Does St. Ignatius' description of the devil as essentially powerless change your view of the evil one?

Chapter 13: Breaking the Spiritual Silence (Rule 13)

Definitions:
chimera (164)- A fire-breathing she-monster usually represented as a composite of a lion, goat, and serpent.

mendacity (166)-The condition of being mendacious; untruthfulness.

Questions:
1.  Reflect on a time when you felt unable to speak about an interior burden.  How was it eventually lifted?

2.  Who are the appropriate spiritual people in your life that you can confide in and seek advice from?

3.  Why does speaking our fears aloud diminish there ability to hinder us?

4.  How do you overcome the hesitation to speak/desire to speak dynamic?

Chapter 12: Staying Firm in the Beginnings (Rule 12)

1.  What temptations does the enemy use to attack you?
2.  What parenting techniques work equally well in silencing temptation?
3.  How does the knowledge that the enemy is essentially weak help in overcoming temptation?
4.  How do you break free of the snowball of temptation/guilt/fear/

weakness/failure?

Chapter 11: Spiritual Consolation and Spiritual Desolation: Finding Our Balance (Rule 11)

1.  What helps you to maintain balance in your spiritual life?

2.  Why is a humble heart so essential?

3.  How do you foster daily spiritual awareness?

4.  Examine your daily fluctuations between consolation and desolation this week.  Strive to apply Ignatius' rules to achieve a greater level of balance.

Chapter 10: Spiritual Consolation: A Time to Prepare (Rule 10)

1.  Reflect on a moment of spiritual consolation.  What gift(s) did God grant you?

2.  How does/has preparation in times of consolation assist(ed) you in desolation?

3.  What scripture verse or passage gives you strength?  Write it out and re-read/memorize it.

4.  Determine the means you will use to keep St. Ignatius' rules at hand.

Chapter 9: Why Does God Allow Spiritual Desolation (Rule 9)

1.  What means is God using to make your soul great?  How are you assisting or resisting?

2.  Consider times when God's healing love worked in your life through spiritual desolation.  What did you gain?

3.  Reflect on an experience that you felt unprepared to handle, but did by God's grace.  Did you recognize His work at the time?  Did you invite Him into the situation right away?

4.  Examine a personal experiences with each of the three main causes of desolation.  How where they different?  similar?

Chapter 8: Spiritual Desolation: A Time for Patience (Rule 8)

1.  What helps you be faithful to the "God given tasks" of your vocation as wife and mother?

2.  How do you work to persist in patience?

3.  Do you have any tricks to counteract negative thinking or self-talk?

4.  Examine a grace spiral (page 109) that has occurred in your life.  Meditate on the actions/events in light of St. Paul's words (1 Cor 15:10), "His grace to me has not been ineffective.  Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them; not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me."

Chapter 7: Spiritual Desolation: A Time for Resistance (Rule 7)

St. Joan by George Bernard Shaw
envisage-contemplate or conceive of as a possibility or a desirable future event.

1.  Examine a past trial from God's perspective.  Looking back, what was the divine purpose in allowing it?  What did you learn or how did you grow?

2.  Consider how your natural powers: the ability to think, to choose, to call certain truths to mind and to envisage spiritual realities can assist in overcoming desolation.

3.  What trials are you able to resist more quickly and surely now than in the past?

4.  Take time this week to remember God's fidelity as He worked in your life, perhaps journaling or creating a spiritual time line of key moments in your spiritual journey.  Look back on it when you forget.

Chapter 6: Spiritual Desolation: A Time for Initiative (Rule 6)

1.  What helps you bear situations of suffering (crosses) on a physical and/or emotional level?

2.  Share an example of a time when prayer/meditation in a time of desolation brought you to a time of consolation.

3.  If you experience spiritual discouragement or desolation this week, try to pinpoint the source through examination.

4.  As we approach Lent, consider what forms of penance have born the most fruit for your spiritual life.  Any creative resolutions after reading Fr. Gallagher's examples?

Chapter 5: Spiritual Desolation: A Time for Fidelity (Rule 5)

1.  What spiritual practices has discouragement led you to give up?

2.  What helps you to be firm and constant in your resolutions to grow spiritually?

3.  Why is fidelity during desolation so important?

4.  How might this norm be applied to our relationship with others?

Chapter 4: Spiritual Desolation (Rule 4)

1.  Reflect on a time of spiritual desolation that was ultimately encouraging.

2.  How does a clear understanding of spiritual desolation diminish its power to dishearten us?

3.  What physical or psychological challenges tend to be your springboards to spiritual desolation?  What practical steps can you take to lessen or eliminate their effect?

4.  Be aware of occasions of spiritual desolation throughout your week.  How do these instances effect your relationship with God?

Chapter 3: Spiritual Consolation (Rule 3)

1.  Share an experience when a non-spiritual consolation provided a springboard for a spiritual consolation. 

2.  What attractions (page 53) made it difficult to give yourself wholly to God?  How are these "created things" now integrated into your response to God's call?

3.  What consolation(s) have you been given through the gift of tears?

4.  Try to be aware and identify spiritual consolations each day this week.  How does this impact your relationship with God?

Chapter 2: When a Person Moves toward God (Rule 2)

1.  Consider the evil spirits tactics "to bite, sadden and place obstacles, disquieting with false reason."  Reflect on a time when one of these techniques was working against your spiritual progress.  How did you respond?

2.  Now consider the good spirits methods "to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing and taking away all obstacles."  Reflect on the application in your own life.

3.  Share an experience in which you received the gift of spiritual clarity.

4.  When have you come a seemingly insurmountable obstacle?  Looking back, how was God's grace present?

Chapter 1: When a Person Moves Away from God (Rule 1)

Definition
inimical-adverse in tendency or effect

Other
Text of the poem Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson

Discussion
1.  What resolution have you been prompted to make, but not yet made?  What is holding you back?

2.  Share an example where you anticipated, prepared for and successfully overcame adversity.

3.  How do you guard yourself and your family's imagination against the "culture of the image" that we live in?

4.  What people or influences have been essential in moving you toward the will of God?

Prologue: What is Discernment of Spirits?

Definitions
affective-influenced by or resulting from the emotions
ontological-of or relating to essence or the nature of being

Discussion
1.  Reflect on a conversion/reversion moment in your own life.  How where your eyes opened to God's work?

2.  Which of the three key steps (Be Aware/Understand/Take Action) seems the most challenging?

3.  How aware are you of your own interior spiritual experience?

4.  Share an experience in which you felt certain you were doing God's will.  What were the signs?

(Foreward) Introduction-The Text of the Rules

Definition
laconic (page 4)-concise

1.  Are you familiar with St. Ignatius of Loyola and his Spiritual Exercises?  What experience(s) if any have you had with Ignatian prayer?

2.  Reflect on an experience in your own life when the reality of daily interactions contrasted with the peace and joy of your spiritual life (like Tolstoy's character Levin).

3.  How are you able to remain contemplative even in the midst of action?

4.  Which rule most interests you?  Which reflects your current spiritual state?

Discernment of Spirits

"Fr. Gallagher helps us understand St. Ignatius of Loyola's Rules for Discernment and how their insights are invaluable for our spiritual growth today. By integrating the Rules and the experience of contemporary people, Fr. Gallagher shows the precision, clarity, and insight of Ignatius's Rules. This book is for all who desire greater awareness of God's action in their daily spiritual lives, and is valuable reading for retreat directors, spiritual directors, priests, and counselors."-from frtimothygallagher.org

Select podcasts are available at Discerning Hearts.