†SUSCIPE

8THWORKER@PHJESUITS.ORG / JM SJ

†SUSCIPE

n 22 July 2025, Tuesday, we begin the first day of our Novena of Grace in honor of St Ignatius of Loyola. For the next nine days, we are invited to enter more deeply into the heart of Ignatian spirituality by praying with one of his most beloved prayers known mononymously as the Suscipe—“Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem…” ("Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty...").

The Latin word Suscipe is not just a request for God to passively receive something. It is a compound verb that carries a rich and layered connotation, far more than just “receive.” It implies active reception, embrace, and even a taking of responsibility. Over these nine days, we will journey word by word, phrase by phrase, allowing each to speak to our own lives.

Each day, we will focus on one key word from the Suscipe. With each word comes an invitation to pause, to reflect, and to pray for a specific grace—a gift that only God can give. We are invited to beg for these graces in a spirit of surrender, freedom, and deep intimacy with God, just as St Ignatius did through his prayer of offering, entrusting, and relinquishing all to the Divine.

Part of the power of this prayer lies in how it disposes the heart—slowly drawing us into a posture of interior freedom and availability to God's will.

May this novena be a time of sacred encounter—a space of grace that gently orients the heart toward humble openness and trusting surrender to the Lord.

An Adaptation of the Suscipe Prayer:

Take, Lord, and receive all

my liberty—my chains, my fetters;

my memory—my forgetfulness;

my understanding—my ignorance;

my entire will, especially

my disobedience and helplessness;

all I have and those I meekly

or haughtily call my own.

You have freely given all to me

to you, Lord—with fear

and trembling—I return it.