Fr. John O’Brien, SJ, is looking to timeless Jesuit traditions as one of many means for the faithful to practice and nurture their spiritual resiliency as Lent gets underway.

The director of the National Shrine to the Canadian Martyrs in Midland, Ont., was to be a guest on the Jesuits of Canada’s live podcast series Journeying Together on March 6, where, joined by Fr. Jean-Francky Guerrier and Scott McMaster, they shared how different principles and practices can assist in the growth of our spiritual lives. 

“(These practices)  were originally meant to be highlighted for Catholic young adults but they have actually been gaining traction with Catholics of all ages. The goal is to showcase a practical presentation of six habits that I believe are worth their weight in gold when it comes to beginning or maintaining a healthy, regular spiritual life,” O’Brien said. 

The talk highlights his latest handbook published by Martyrs Shrine Press, The Six Daily Habits (for Spiritual Resiliency). In it O’Brien shares an outline toward cultivating a blossoming relationship with Jesus through habits that draw heavily from the Ignatian tradition. 

The six habits — morning offering, prayer with Scripture, beauty, the good turn (such as social outreach or charitable acts), spiritual reading and evening examens — are all emphasized as key ways to amplify a person's faith life when included alongside the sacraments. 

For those feeling trapped in their spiritual life, O’Brien advises to look no further than the first practice of a morning offering. 

“ The first prayer of the day has been promoted by Jesuit apostolates in the past and within the Catholic undercurrent devotional life as a powerful means of almost jumpstarting the relational aspect of spirituality each day,” he said.

“When I was a boy, my mother taught it to me and even during my years when I may not have been praying a lot, I always had the morning offering to fall back on. I started noticing in my own life how the days where I offered the day and all of its contents to God, that they ended up being noticably and qualitatively better days.” 

From there, the faithful may be able to better understand and incorporate habits such as contemplating beauty and praying along with Scripture in their daily lives. 

As noted by the Shrine director, all of these practices are not necessarily groundbreaking discoveries, nor are they exclusive to Ignatian tradition alone. Through those truths, he hopes his appearance on episode three of the Journeying Together podcast reignites a passion within each listener to follow steps toward walking in their faith practically. 

“ These are all emphases and articulations on the bigger idea of spiritual tradition. Some are more specifically Ignatian than others, like the evening examen or imaginative prayer with Scripture, but everything is pretty much universal. It is just about presenting things in different ways that are intelligible to those certain bodies of contemporary people.” 

The episode comes at an opportune time as the Church entered into Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 5. While the practices are applicable year-round, O’Brien says that, at its core, a stronger relationship with God is not just something to practise during this season, but that it is the very essence of Lent itself. 

“ Lent would be the perfect time to list off these six habits as something doable and lead oneself towards a deeper relationship with God, which is exactly what Lent is about,” he said. “These don't have a strong penitential dimension, but every practice has a certain ascetical dimension.”

The podcast is available online. O’Brien’s book is also available free online through Martyr’s Shrine Press.