Tuesdays, October 14-November 18, 2025

Being a Contemplative Creative-in-Action: The Spiritual Exercises and the Creative Life

  • Six Tuesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00 pm ET
  • October 14-November 18, 2025
  • Cost: $150
  • Max participants: 12

More retreat than course, this is a six-week “experience” of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola for “creatives” — those interested and involved in some aspect of the creative arts and the intersection of that creative work with their own lives of spirituality and prayer, seen especially through the lens of Ignatian spirituality.

In addition to the weekly group gatherings, participants will be asked to engage in the prayer and content of the retreat on a daily basis, including:

  • Praying with an assigned piece of reading, art, video or music each day of the retreat for 20-30 minutes, followed by a period of creative work or journaling for 20-30 minutes
  • Attending six weekly, 90-minute, online small group gatherings, which will feature presentations, discussion and sharing of creative work

Themes for Each Week of the Retreat

About the Instructor

Week 1: Introduction – Composing Yourself for and in Prayer
  • Praying for a grace
  • Lectio-, Audio-, Visio- Divina
  • Reviewing your time of prayer
  • Creating from your prayer
Week 2: God’s Unconditional Love and Being a Beloved Sinner
  • Encountering the creative and still-creating God
  • Images of God — helpful and not so…
Week 3: An Invitation to Freedom
  • YOUR Principle and Foundation
  • Ignatian indifference
  • Finding God in all things
Week 4: The Examen and Discernment of Spirits
  • Savoring experience
  • Hearing God’s voice within
  • Prayer and creativity as “re-membering”
Week 5: Imaginative Prayer and Creativity
  • Colloquy — speaking to God as a friend
  • Accompanying Christ, finding yourself in the scene and finding God in your life
Week 6: Contemplating Love and Surrendering to It
  • Being a contemplative- and creative-in-action.
  • Striving for the magis
Steve Givens is a retreat and spiritual director and a widely published writer on issues of Catholic-Christian faith and spirituality. He is the executive director of the Bridges Foundation, which brings Ignatian spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola to everyday life for those in the St. Louis region. He is also a musician, composer and singer.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the course, email Mike Jordan Laskey at jccucommunications@jesuits.org.

Register for this Event

Being a Contemplative Creative-in-Action: The Spiritual Exercises and the Creative Life is full; to join a waiting list, email medialab@jesuits.org.

Contributed by:

Steve Givens

Steve Givens is a retreat and spiritual director and a widely published writer on issues of Catholic-Christian faith and spirituality. He is the executive director of the Bridges Foundation, which brings Ignatian spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola to everyday life for those in the St. Louis region.