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?