The Heart Of The Spiritual Exercises With Fr. Anthony Wieck, S.J.

Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode focuses on the standards of Christ versus the standards of the Enemy.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“So Satan always is trying to tempt Jesus to focus on himself, and Jesus instead is constantly focused on the Father. His center is always on the Father. He’s eccentric. From and center, his center is always away from Himself in the Father. He’s a man in love. This is the son of God made flesh. You and I will only find ourselves in being in love. So all right. So that’s the temptation of Satan. And so creature comforts, by the way, in religious life, there’s a lot of temptations for little ways of taking a trip or maybe pocketing some money or things like that. Poverty, St. Ignatius says is the bulwark of the religious life.

So it’s the protecting bulwark of the religious life. And that will be the first to be attacked by Satan. It’s the first to go, pocket money on the side. People may give me, entitled to do certain things with money sent my way. We’ve seen some good priests in religious recently, very popular ones that have first fallen, allowed poverty to kind of be broken down, and then one thing leads to another, and then unfortunately, we read about them in the papers. It’s so sad and scandalous.

But that’s the common way Satan works with us. So we do have to watch all kinds of things like my wardrobe. Do I keep allowing new things to be brought in there, or do each time I add something, I subtract something also? Am I living a certain simplicity of life? That’s the invitation, not to keep needing more and more things to live a higher and higher standard of living. That’s the danger.”

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at the White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

The post HSE8 – The Two Standards: Christ or the Enemy – The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with Fr. Anthony Wieck S.J. – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode focuses on Week Two of the Spiritual Exercises.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“And so, this is an invitation for you and me to detach from the common things that we cling to and we listen to this call of certain people, who are inspired to want to live exactly what Christ lived. That’s what the religious life is, really. You’re living the actual poverty. You’re living the same kind of life he lived. We need to be inspired by that. That should be something that we find very attractive. Most of us will not be called to the religious life, but we need to understand and appreciate what a gift it would be to be called.”

“He chooses us for whatever path, married life, religious life, whatever vowed life He’s calling us to. But it’s all according to His greater servicing praise. So we’re listening. It’s always a listening response. It’s not I’m finding in myself some natural generosity. It’s not ‘I propose and then God disposes’. I propose what I’d like to do with my life and see if God is going to sign off on that. No, it’s a received gift to imitate the Lord in my particular state and way of life. But we do this in front of, he says, in front of the presence of God with His glorious mother, all the saints of the heavenly court. Saint Ignatius loved to ponder himself before the heavenly court.

So, I think this call is objectively considered for Ignatius. It’s listened to, it’s made by the retreat end, but we’re not yet at a time of choice. The retreat end is not yet. This is the beginning of the second week. Towards the end, we’ll start making a personal choice, but we really need to consider what a gift it would be to be called to the same way and state of life bearing, even living of actual poverty without a bank account, those kind of things. But we do want to bear all injuries with Jesus too.”

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

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Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode takes a look at the Spiritual Exercises through methods of Ignatian prayer.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“So it’s actually not even my prayer that I’m entering into. It’s actually God inspiring this. And so as I sit in the chapel, as I sit in my place of prayer, I first calm down and remind myself that God is the one leading me here.

I recall my first spiritual director was a Dominican back in California, and I was complaining to him, “Father, I really don’t know how to pray very well. I’m really not good at this. I really want to be better at this.” And he said, “Stop, Anthony.” He said, “Do you realize that even your desire for prayer is already God working within you?” And I said, “No.” I’d never thought of that. So I need to acknowledge that God has even brought me here that he wants to enter. He’s the initiator of this dialogue.

I need to have the Copernican Revolution, huh? Where my focus is on what God is doing. God’s brought me here. God’s sustaining me in existence right now. So I’m acknowledging what he’s doing and that there isn’t other here with a capital O. And so, I’m entering into this dialogue. Before I enter into the desire, and let’s see, what are the steps of my prayer that I’m going to do today? My prayer? Oh no. It’s an acknowledgement that I’m in the presence of an other who’s drawn me here. I have been drawn here, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for my faith life, which has been complete gift.”

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

The post HSE6 – Ignatian Prayer – The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with Fr. Anthony Wieck S.J. – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode takes a look at the Spiritual Exercises through the lens of our identity in and relationship with Christ.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“So that’s what the spiritual exercises are, five forms of prayer, to help us be free, to help us enter into dialogue with the Lord, to help facilitate that encounter. What is the grounding now? And here’s where I’d like to focus today, if we may. What is the grounding of the spiritual exercises? How are they grounded? St. Ignatius calls this the principle and foundation, and he literally means that these are deep, fundamental or pillars, deep shafts, pylons, thrust into the earth, thrust into the rock, who is Christ upon which a solid spiritual edifice can be built.

So the principle and foundation holds true for all men and women. This is not unique to the charism of Ignatian spirituality. This is regardless of any spirituality or particular sense of God. It’s not a “Catholics only” proposition either. It’s for all Christians, for all men and women of every race, nationality, and tongue. To live from this principle and foundation, it begins, St. Ignatius says, that man is created for a purpose. We are created. Ignatius, by this assertion, uproots any false foundation which underlies most of our self-understanding today in the world. Namely, that we create ourselves, that we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, we’re self-made American men and women. That’s nonsense, we’re created by God. This is an ongoing creation.”

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

The post HSE5 – Our Identity & Relationship in Christ – The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with Fr. Anthony Wieck S.J. – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode continues the analogy of the charism triptych and examines St. Ignatius’s role in the founding of the Jesuits.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“St. Ignatius, I would like to add to that third part of the Triptych, that he also had God concretely manifesting himself through nature. In other words, God sustains all in existence through its being power and essence. That’s Aquinas, but he’s sustaining all. He’s very much laboring in His creation for you and me. So God is showing His love indirectly by all of nature, holding it in such a perfect balance for us. That’s God at work.

… But the chances of such low entropy, where everything’s held together as it is so well in our world, Kris, is not just [an] one in 10 [chance] of it all holding together so well and not dissipating and falling apart, nor to add another zero to the hundredth power. But you’d have to add 123 zeros to that to get the chances of such low entropy in our universe. So God is sustaining this, all that science even talking. But you and I know that there’s three persons behind this: namely the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sustaining us in this perfect existence.

So for Ignatius, it is said about him that from one of his first companions, Ribaneira, he says that, “At the sight of a little plant or a leaf or a tiny animal, Ignatius could soar free above the heavens and reach through into things which lie beyond the senses. So that’s fascinating. Something beautiful on earth he would allow himself to be kind of mesmerized by and watch how God is active in that. Sustaining it, strengthening it in its plant cycle, it’s life cycle, whatever animal it might be, or little plant. And it would lead him to this soaring experience beyond the senses into the divine again. So all things pointed for him back to the glory of God.

There’s a German poet, Hölderlin, and perhaps his phrase describes Ignatius better than any other. His experience. So he says this very short phrase. “To suffer no restriction from anything, however great, and yet to be contained in the tiniest of things. That is divine.“

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

The post HSE4 – St. Ignatius, A Man of the Church – The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with Fr. Anthony Wieck S.J. – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode goes into the gift of charism and describes it as the first two parts of a triptych.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“Yes, I think you say it well because you’re speaking about how we’re drawn into that self-giving and self receiving a dynamic. So, I receive the other as a gift and I give myself as gift. So, as the father completely gives himself to the Son and holds back nothing. And the father is all about the Son. And even if you’re going to use technical Trinitarian language, I taught a course on the Holy Trinity at the seminary here. St. Thomas Aquinas says the father doesn’t have a relationship with the Son, the father is that relationship with the Son. It defines his very person as to be the father of the Son. And so, to the Son doesn’t have a relationship with the Father, as if he’s substantial of himself without the Father, but he is that relationship with the Father. All of this in the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of love, that walls up between both of them.

It’s the spirit of complete self-gift in receiving. The other is gift. So, the Son receives himself eternally and at every moment as a gift from the Father. So, this is the dynamic of receiving oneself of gift, receiving all of creation as gift.

And then I have no greater desire than to do what? To give myself back as a gift, as I allow myself to be overwhelmed with the love of God and the greatness of God and the majesty of God and the ever greater. He loves that phrase ever greater. That ever greater ness of God. This is key to my healthy response of complete surrender and self-gift. Part of that goes back to the Lateran Council IV. It’s a definition in 1215 about what an analogy is. So, what the church defined there in 1215 was that between God and his creatures, within every similarity, there’s a greater dissimilarity. So, God is loving and I can be loving, God is wise, I can be wise to some degree. So, there are similarities between us and God. But within that similarities, there’s an ever greater dissimilarity. That’s a beautiful gift though, and it’s an invitation to love to receive that ever greater love, the divine love, and to live from that divine love and respond in divine love.”

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

The post HSE3 – The Charism and Gift of St. Ignatius – The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with Fr. Anthony Wieck S.J. – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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Fr. Anthony Wieck and Kris McGregor continue this series centered around the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This episode goes into the gift of charism and continues the story of St. Ignatius’ ill-fated journey to the Holy Land.

An excerpt from the conversation:

“Yes, that’s right, many different orders. Saint Francis de Sales founded five different religious branches based on the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius. So they’re not unique to the Jesuits. They’re not our property. This charism is diffused in many different ways. But many different orders, Sisters of Saint Joseph, Sisters of Loreto that Mother Teresa was part of before she began her own order, were also rooted in the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius. So they’re a gift to the church. They’re a gift to the church to help us reorder our lives, to help us find the Lord’s will in our life. For Saint Ignatius, God is a choosing God. He was very enamored… I’ve spoke about the different charisms. But he was very enamored by this God who kept choosing men and women to follow Him, to enter into His company, to be conformed to Him.

So when you read the spiritual exercises, and ponder the various meditations therein that Saint Ignatius composes, you’ll notice how this is a very active Jesus. It’s not so much the preaching Jesus, which would be more appealing to a Dominican charism, the preaching Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount. It’s an active Jesus who goes out and finds people, who moves, who performs these miracles, who’s drawing everyone towards this Jerusalem experience of self-gift and sacrifice. This is a gift given to the whole church though.”

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

The post HSE2 – The Gift of Charism – The Heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with Fr. Anthony Wieck S.J. – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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In this first episode, Fr. Anthony Wick joins Kris McGregor to explore the personal journey that led him to discover and embrace the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Drawing from his upbringing on a Montana farm, the influence of his Jesuit-formed father, and his own experiences with retreats and education at the St. Ignatius Institute, Fr. Wick recounts how Ignatian spirituality gradually drew him toward religious life. Despite early resistance and a desire for marriage and family, he found himself captivated by Ignatius’ approach to prayer, discernment, and inner freedom. A pivotal moment came when a Jesuit friend suggested he spend time at the Casa Alverà in Rome, a house of discernment that helped clarify his vocation.

The conversation highlights how St. Ignatius’ own life was transformed through suffering, especially during his convalescence after being wounded in battle. Reading the lives of Christ and the saints, Ignatius began to notice the different effects that thoughts had on his spirit. Some left him empty while others filled him with joy. This observation became the basis for his discernment of spirits, a foundational principle in the Spiritual Exercises. Fr. Wick explains how Ignatius’ mystical experiences in the cave at Manresa laid the groundwork for this practical and deeply personal spiritual tool. He also shares how discovering his own patron saint, St. Anthony of Egypt, helped confirm his call and opened his heart to the flourishing that comes with finding one’s true spiritual father. The episode invites listeners to explore which saints may have chosen them and to pursue those interior stirrings that lead toward deeper relationship with Christ.

Discerning Hearts Catholic Reflection Questions:

When you reflect on your own spiritual journey, can you identify moments when God reoriented your plans toward something deeper?

What inner responses do you experience when considering the lives of the saints—do any leave you especially consoled or stirred?

Have you ever noticed different spiritual “fruits” from your thoughts or desires, as St. Ignatius did during his convalescence?

What does it mean to you that the saints might choose us, rather than the other way around?

How has your understanding of spiritual fatherhood or motherhood shaped your prayer life and discernment?

In what ways might God be inviting you to surrender inordinate attachments or self-centered plans?

Which particular saints have helped you flourish in your spiritual life, and how have they guided your path?

How can you begin or deepen a habit of prayerfully listening to God through the charism of a particular spiritual tradition?

Fr. Anthony Wieck is a Jesuit priest of the Central & Southern province. Sixth of nine children, raised on a farm in Oregon, Fr. Anthony began religious life in 1994, spending his first five years of formation in Rome, Italy, studying at the Casa Balthasar and the Gregorian. The former was under the watchful patronage of Pope Benedict XVI (then-Card. Joseph Ratzinger).  Fr. Anthony currently acts as retreat master at White House Jesuit Retreat in St. Louis, Missouri. He also offers spiritual direction at the St. Louis diocesan seminary for 25 future priests there. 

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