Conference on reform of life

The spiritual exercise point, according to saint Ignatius of Loyola, to prepare and dispose the soul to free itself of all inordinate attachments and after accomplishing this, to seek and discover the Divine Will in our life.

So at this point we already suppose that having meditated on the most important truths of our life we already know:

• What is God’s will regarding our past life. It means that God has poured his light over our souls in order that we may know what our miseries are. But God granted us this grace in order that we remedy those miseries.
• We also know what God is asking us at this very moment.
• We know also that God maybe is asking us something but we not see it clearly. So this is the moment in which we have to apply the rules for discernment of spirit to see what God’s will is regarding those things.
• And the fourth thing we already know by this time are the obstacles we have to follow Jesus in a radical way.

Once we know this, we have to reform our entire life in order to follow Jesus more closely. To reform means to give a new Shape or form to something. As the craftsman forms a clay vessel so we have to form our life again according to the model God has in his Divine plan.

How do we have to do the reform?

Basically, It consists in gazing at our life and examine all the aspects of our formation. The purpose of this gaze is to find out if something is lacking or if we are failing in some of those aspects of our life. As a result, after we have checked all the aspects the following step is to elaborate a realistic and concrete plan in order to optimize our efforts. 

The Check-up of our life

In order to reform we have to know what the state of our life is. For this we have to make a check-up of the different aspects of our life. In order to discover all the failures that have to be reformed.

The aspects of our life that have to be checked are:

1) Human formation: It means our personality, our self-balance. Concretely we have to check:

• All the virtues that we are urged to practice.
• Our rooted defects we have to fight.
• To discover which is the dominant defect that dominates my life.
• Affections, attachments etc.

2) Spiritual formation:

• Prayer life
• Participation in the Holy Mass
• How I go confession, what my dispositions are.
• Spiritual direction.
• How I’m doing the examination of conscience.

3) Interpersonal Relationships

• What’s my roll in family life, Am I putting the gifts that God gave for the good of my community?
• How is my charity toward each member, my generosity, etc.

4) Intellectual formation:

• How do I take my studies: seriously, do I make do with the minimum or I try my best to take advantage of what I’m studding?
• Do I try to study in depth the contents I received?

5) Pastoral formation:

• Do I plan my apostolate?
• How is my apostolic zeal?

The plan of life

 Qualities and style of keeping a rule of life. However, the plan of life should be adapted prudently to one’s particular vocation and duties of state in life. A plan of life that would be suitable for several classes of persons would lose its effectiveness by being too general.

Faithfulness to a rule has a decided educative value. Instead of caprice and disorder that run rampant in an ill – ordered life, duty and strength of will prevail, and as a consequence, order and system. They will submit to God, and our inferior faculties yield their obedience to the will (interior peace).

A good rule provides for a brief thought of God before every action of any importance, and for the forming of a supernatural intention.

The requirements differ for persons in various vocations or states of life: laity, diocesan priest.

The diocesan priest must be in the world, but not of the world. His apostolate is such that it keeps him in constant with the people, and for that reason his way of life is evident to all. He must, therefore, be conscious of his personal obligation to strive for holiness and to give good example to the faithful.

He must avoid the same mistake the laity must avoid, namely, attempting to live a watered – down religious life. The diocesan priest is above all a man of the people, and although it may prove very satisfying to follow a plan of life that would provide many hours of recollection and solitude, he would run the risk of withdrawing too much from the people he has been sent to serve. At the other extreme, the diocesan priest without any plan of life is a constant contradiction in the eyes of his people; they cannot understand how a priest would be a worthy priest and still give no sign of regularity in the practices of the spiritual life. A priest is expected to be a man of temperate and regular habits, to be available at all times for the needs of his people, to have that delicate sense of prudence that enables him to be in the world without becoming worldly.

The diocesan priest should seek to draw up a plan of life enabling him to dedicate himself completely to his apostolate and at the same time to utilize certain hours of the day for his personal sanctification. Unlike the religious priest, the diocesan priest does not have a schedule of daily life provided for him by a rule; except for the demands of his ministry and the care of souls, he is left to himself regarding the schedule of his daily life.

Convinced that the soul of zeal is an interior life, the diocesan priest takes care that his plan of life devotes a certain portion of time to prayer: Holy Mass, thanksgiving, weekly confession, and all other exercises indispensable as spiritual food of the soul…

Fixed hours are devoted to the divers kinds of parochial work: confessions, administration of the Sacraments, preparation of Sunday’s preaching, theological revision…

Scope of the plan of life

The plan of life has to embrace the main aspects of our life. So, we should focus on our daily schedule, the fundamental projects we have for spiritual life. We have to what the top spiritual priorities are, etc.

The last thing ti keep in main is that the plan pf life should be checked every monthly retreat.