Permanent Formation

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Drawing from the Wellspring

An introduction to prayer in daily life

Tadeusz Kotlewski SJ

“Drawing from the Wellspring” is a proposal and encouragement to enliven your faith and prayer. This book is not meant to be a handbook on how to pray but rather a small guide on the path of developing your personal prayer. We know that it is not the amount of the material studied that encourages and fosters prayer but rather an individual decision to enter on its path. We tend to perceive prayer as being very difficult, especially the prolonged one. Yet, it may become a simple way to God and to other man, if only it is practiced with humbleness, courage, simplicity and naturalness.

An Introduction to daily prayer is meant to assist in our journey to derive from the Wellspring, to feel the spiritual taste and joy arising out of the meeting with God.

Together or Apart

 A challenge of the Christian community

Tadeusz Kotlewski SJ

Christian communities live by one, and only, radical passion – to follow Jesus Christ. It is He who calls and invites into a community, it is He who sends the Message. It is God, not man, who creates the Christian community. Developing a bond with Him causes human bonds to grow stronger, more genuine and responsible. It is undoubtedly a spiritual path which cannot be walked alone. Therefore we need to walk together in order to carry out God’s Mercy by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Loving Yourself

 in the Depths of Your Heart

Tadeusz Kotlewski SJ

In order to truly love ourselves, we must enter our most intimate hearts, we need to find ourselves within us so that we may discover the Source of Love there. This Fountain is so often hidden by the troubled and painful events that take place in our lives. We can discover real Love, God Himself, only by entering our hearts. We will be able to love ourselves with this great Love and discover our dignity, and we will be able to love others—to care and feel responsible for them. This Love lets us give due reverence to God, whom we serve and whom we yearn to love with all our hearts. This is the path of the heart!

The Merciful in Everyday Life

Reflections with Saint Faustina

Sr. M. Alicja Zelmańska ISMM

What can we do so that the Divine Mercy is manifested in our entire being, permeating our thoughts, words and activities? How to be merciful not only from time to time, during significant life events or acts of charity, but “always and everywhere” in our daily life. This book attempts at finding answers to these questions with an aim to enliven, deepen and strengthen the spirit of mercy towards all those whom we meet each day on our paths of life.

Saint Faustina understood well that human mercy partakes of the Divine Mercy, therefore it demands constant communion and profound unity with Jesus – the Source of Mercy not only during prayer but in all events of daily life. Her life reveals how important it is for the shaping of the attitude of mercy to discover in our heart the presence of God – the Source of Mercy and to commune with Him through love. By uniting with Jesus, by constantly adoring and contemplating Him in the innermost depths of her heart, Saint Faustina longed to be His living image and wished to be transformed entirely into His mercy. Her prayer Help me, O Lord is an expression of this strong desire burning in her.

14  ways to do works of mercy

Sr. M. Diana Kuczek ISMM

”For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2: 10). This awareness fills me with joy. I am a person created by God. Saint Paul writes:” I am His creation”. Good and merciful God appointed me, so that I have my share in the love of the Holy Trinity and love myself and my brothers with the love which He Himself poured into my heart. How good is Almighty God! How much He has trusted me! Jesus desires that my faith and love be expressed in deeds. Before the ages began, I had been prepared and summoned to fulfil this mission, so that the will of the Father who desires my happiness and salvation be fulfilled in this way.

Nevertheless, it is with great apprehension that I look at the contemporary world full of relativism, consumptionism and conformism. I often think that the world of values belongs to the past, whereas subjectivism and individualism keep directing me towards my needs only. The history of sin and evil continues ceaselessly, winning over new followers. The power of evil seems appalling and overwhelming. Still, I do not lose hope in God’s mercy. Jesus redeemed me in the work of salvation, accomplished in the passion and death on the cross, but He rose again the third day.

The victory in on the side of good, on the side of the Almighty God. I am looking for the methods to share the mercy I have experienced in my life… I can enumerate at least 14 of such works comprising: 7 corporal and 7 spiritual works of mercy. With Saint Faustina I embark upon a journey to meet God in my brothers and sisters with an aim to become fully human.