This past summer while on retreat I sat outdoors at breakfast, looking out at a beautiful garden of flowers and a blossoming tree near a statue of Mary. On the tree was a bird feeder attached to a branch. Beneath it I saw a chipmunk gathering seeds. There was a chickadee eating above the chipmunk, and some of the seeds fell to the ground. As the seeds fell, the chipmunk scooped them up into his mouth. I watched the chipmunk’s cheeks grow fatter and fatter with seeds—perhaps much like the Ignatian idea of storing up consolation now for a time of desolation later, I thought.
My retreat left me feeling much like that chipmunk, having received many good gifts that mostly only required of me that I be there to receive them. God does all the work, and I’m just there to pay attention and to receive. When I was younger, prayer was a gift then, too, but it felt like a lot more effort on my part. For example, I engaged in a great deal of imaginative prayer, setting the scene of an Ignatian contemplation in order to get the prayer going, or in silence trying hard to hear
