What is God’s Field Hospital?
“I see the church as a field hospital after battle. The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and warm the hearts of the faithful. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if they has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal their wounds. Then we can talk about everything else…”. [1]
God’s Field Hospital is a response to the image above by Pope Francis. A field hospital spiritual exercise is a simple, structured, refreshing way to pray. Exercises like these were first offered by St Ignatius Loyola nearly 500 years ago and have helped many people during times of feast and famine, enrichment, and plague, inside and outside churches.
The field hospital exercises are for the immediate use of everyone in need of healing of any kind. Each spiritual exercise is a standalone prayer. Each will draw on your lived experience, your present feelings and desire.
While great for personal prayer, each exercise may be fruitfully prayed, and reflected upon in a group spiritual conversation. On belief in God, those who pray these exercises will have a variety of beliefs. So, the principal name for God in them is ‘Spirit’. You may use your preferred name, express your faith as you desire. We invite you to adapt and personalise, making each exercise your own, as well has offering them to others.