Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Meditation with the Three Powers & the Colloquy
To meditate on a theme by engaging the whole self in sequence — memory to recall it, understanding to reflect on it, will to be moved by it — and to close in an intimate, heart-to-heart colloquy.
Three-powers meditation in one pass (~1 hr): Open with a brief prayer. Set the frame and name the grace you want. Then walk the three powers: MEMORY — recall the matter clearly; UNDERSTANDING — reflect deeply, draw out its meaning for you; WILL — let yourself be moved to love, sorrow, gratitude, resolve. Close with a colloquy — speak heart to heart, “as one friend to another” (optionally the Anima Christi or Our Father). Don’t rush to cover ground; relish what moves you, and repeat it.
What it is
Where Ignatian contemplation enters a scene with the imagination, Ignatian meditation works a theme with the three powers of the soul — memory, understanding, and will.
You remember the matter (recall the facts, the story, the truth you’re praying on), understand it (reflect, reason, let it sink in), and let your will be moved (the affective, volitional response — love, sorrow, resolve, gratitude).
It is a deliberate march through the whole self: head, then deeper sense, then heart and choice. Ignatius pairs it with the Colloquy — a closing, intimate conversation “as one friend speaks to another,” in which you simply talk, heart to heart, with God (or, in a secular reading, with your deepest self or highest values).
The practice trains sustained attention (The Inner Creates the Outer) on a single matter and routes it deliberately into feeling and committed intention (The Inner Creates the Outer, The Inner Creates the Outer).
The Method
Ignatius lays this out in the First Week meditations (e.g. the meditation on sins, SE 45–54). A meditation typically runs about an hour:
- Preparatory prayer. A brief opening asking that all your intentions and actions be directed toward the good/God.
- Preludes. As with contemplation: a composition (set the scene or frame the matter for the imagination) and a petition naming the specific grace you desire from this meditation.
- First power — MEMORY. Recall the matter: bring to mind the truth, story, or theme you are meditating on — the facts of it, laid out clearly. You are loading the material into awareness.
- Second power — UNDERSTANDING. Reflect and reason on it deeply. Turn it over, draw out its meaning and its implications for you, think more thoroughly about the matter. This is the elaborative, sense-making core.
- Third power — WILL. Let yourself be moved. Stir the affections and the will — respond with love, sorrow, gratitude, resolve. Ignatius’s aim is never information for its own sake; the understanding serves the will, so the meditation lands as felt commitment, not just thought.
- Colloquy (SE 53–54). Close by speaking directly and intimately — Ignatius’s image: “as one friend speaks to another.” Pour out whatever the meditation raised: ask, thank, complain, resolve, love. He often ends with a vocal prayer (the Our Father). The colloquy is where the whole meditation becomes relational and personal. A note on rhythm and repetition. Ignatius cared about how much you draw from a point, not how much ground you cover: “it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.” He prescribed repetition — returning to the same meditation, dwelling on the points that moved you most. (Sourcing note: the three powers (memory/understanding/will) and the colloquy “as one friend speaks to another” are Ignatius’s documented method (SE 45–54); the “not knowing much but relishing interiorly” line is from his Second Annotation (SE 2). Step wording is faithful paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), founder of the Jesuits, structured the First Week of The Spiritual Exercises (~1548) around discursive meditation using the three faculties of the soul — a framework he inherited from the broader medieval/scholastic understanding of the soul’s powers and shaped into a repeatable prayer method. → (Ignatius of Loyola).
The colloquy recurs throughout the whole Exercises as the standard closing movement of every meditation and contemplation. The related closing prayer Anima Christi (“Soul of Christ, sanctify me…”), a 14th-century prayer Ignatius loved and recommended, is traditionally prayed in the same intimate spirit, though it predates him. The Jesuit tradition has taught this meditation method for five centuries.
The Traditions' versions
Lectio divina — the monastic read → meditate → pray → contemplate sequence; the same progression from cognitive engagement to affective response and conversation.
- Elaborative encoding / depth-of-processing study methods — recall the material, then reflect deeply on its meaning: exactly memory → understanding, and the reason it sticks.
- Reflective journaling with an intention — recall, reflect, resolve.
- Compassionate self-dialogue / “empty chair” (Gestalt, self-compassion work) — the colloquy’s heart-to-heart address is structurally a benevolent inner dialogue.
- Contemplative repetition (mantra, repeated reading) — Ignatius’s “relish, don’t rush; repeat what moves you” echoes the value of dwelling over covering.
- Affirmation / resolve practices — the will-step turns reflection into committed intention.
Common refinements
Stopping at understanding. Meditating becomes mere thinking/analysis if you never let it reach the will — the felt, committed response is the point.
- Rushing to cover ground. Against Ignatius’s explicit counsel: don’t race through many points. Relish a few; repeat what moves you.
- Skipping the petition. Naming the desired grace focuses the whole hour; omit it and the meditation wanders.
- Treating the colloquy as a formality. It’s the relational payoff — speak honestly and specifically, not in pious generalities.
- Forcing feeling. You stir the will; you don’t manufacture emotion on command. If nothing comes, stay with it patiently — and read the dryness with discernment (see cross-links).
- No repetition. Ignatius built repetition in; one pass rarely exhausts a rich theme.