Week I:
This photograph captures the difficult process of introspection that marks the first week of the exercises, a time where retreatants must come to terms with their past failures and missed opportunities in loving God and the people closest to them, and forgive themselves in order to proceed with the freedom to pursue a higher calling with love.
Suggested musical accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AWIqXzvX-U
Week II:
This photograph reminds me of the Bay of Parables story Father Martin talked about, with Jesus giving his sermon from the water so that his message could reach everyone. The striking nature of this image seems to capture the Call of the King; of a powerful earthly leader calling us to join him in his radical, noble path.
Suggested musical accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n9F0m0RY8U
Weel III:
Here the sorrow and difficulty retreatants during the third week is evoked, as they follow Jesus in his Passion. Some in this photograph have given in and lost all hope. The man in the foreground is suffering as he emphasizes with Jesus in his pain and sacrifice, but he seems to me to still have the drive somewhere inside to continue down the harsh path and find hope and love at the end.
Suggested musical accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMwi5-eofs
Week IV:
For me, this image beautifully captures resurrection, hope, gratitude, and love, the key virtues explored in the final week of the Spiritual Exercises. The photograph is at once grand and simple, which is how I would imagine Jesus's resurrection, as it doesn't seem to me that He would want to make a show; it evokes hope subtly, because after the exercises there is a lifetime (symbolized by the vast landscape) of continued struggle that follows, but the image of the exalted child symbolizes that there is hope in this journey.
Suggested musical accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiBM7-8vqZ8&index=1&list=PLNHuGMVvDhp0FNk8ki2l90oPkDNEflVwj
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