"Take, Lord, and Receive": Inside the South Dakota Nonprofit Teaching Catholics to Pray Like St. Ignatius
What happens when an ancient prayer becomes a modern mission—and a small nonprofit in Sioux Falls starts helping Catholics rediscover what it means to surrender everything to God?
Meet Suscipe—a Catholic 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, dedicated to helping people grow in prayer and discern God's will for their lives. The organization takes its name from one of the most powerful prayers in the Catholic tradition: the Suscipe of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which begins, "Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will..."
It is a prayer of total surrender. And it is the heartbeat of everything this organization does.
The Prayer Behind the Name
The Suscipe is the culmination of St. Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, the 500-year-old retreat program that has shaped Catholic spirituality more profoundly than perhaps any other single work outside of Scripture. After weeks of meditation, contemplation, and discernment, the retreatant is invited to pray:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will—all that I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.
It is a prayer that strips everything away. No bargaining. No conditions. No holding back a corner of your life that you don't want God to touch. Just total, radical, terrifying trust.
The nonprofit Suscipe exists to help Catholics enter into the spirit of this prayer—not as a one-time act of devotion, but as a way of life.
Growing in Prayer
For many Catholics, prayer is something they do out of obligation rather than desire. They say grace before meals (sometimes). They attend Mass on Sundays (usually). They might whisper a Hail Mary when turbulence hits on a flight. But the deep, transformative prayer life that the saints describe—the kind that changes who you are and what you want—feels distant, intimidating, or reserved for religious sisters and monks.
Suscipe exists to bridge that gap. Through their programs and resources, they help ordinary Catholics—parents, workers, students, retirees—develop prayer lives of real depth and substance. This isn't about guilt or obligation. It's about invitation. About helping people discover that prayer is not a duty to be endured but a relationship to be entered.
The Ignatian tradition is particularly well-suited to this mission because it is practical, structured, and deeply personal. St. Ignatius didn't write the Spiritual Exercises for professional contemplatives. He wrote them for people living in the world—soldiers, students, merchants—who wanted to find God in all things.
The Art of Discernment
Beyond prayer, Suscipe focuses on discernment—the process of discovering God's will for your life. This is one of the areas where modern Catholics struggle most. The culture offers endless options but no framework for choosing between them. Should I take this job or that one? Is God calling me to marriage or religious life? Should we move our family across the country for this opportunity?
Ignatian discernment provides a method—tested over five centuries—for navigating these questions. It teaches you to notice the movements of consolation and desolation in your heart, to distinguish between the voice of God and the voice of fear, and to make decisions rooted in spiritual freedom rather than anxiety.
Suscipe brings this tradition to the people of Sioux Falls and beyond, offering a framework for decision-making that is profoundly countercultural in its patience, depth, and reliance on God.
A Quiet Work in a Quiet Place
There is something fitting about this ministry being based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It is not a flashy coastal city. It is not a place that demands attention. It is a place of open skies, honest work, and deep faith—the kind of place where a quiet, prayer-centered ministry can take root and grow without the noise that would surround it elsewhere.
The Diocese of Sioux Falls serves a Catholic population that is faithful, grounded, and hungry for depth. Suscipe meets that hunger with programs rooted in one of the richest spiritual traditions the Church has ever produced.
Why the World Needs This Now
We live in an age of noise. Notifications, algorithms, hot takes, and endless content compete for our attention every waking moment. The interior life—the life of prayer, silence, and listening for God's voice—has never been harder to cultivate and never been more necessary.
Suscipe offers a remedy rooted in 500 years of Ignatian wisdom. In a world that demands you optimize, produce, and perform, the Suscipe prayer says the opposite: Give it all back to God. That message is not just countercultural. It is revolutionary. And it is exactly what the Church needs right now.
Why This Matters
Most Catholics never learn how to pray beyond rote formulas, and almost none receive training in discernment -- the Ignatian art of recognizing God's voice amid the noise of daily life. Suscipe fills a gap that no parish bulletin or weekend retreat can fully address: sustained, structured guidance in the 500-year-old Spiritual Exercises tradition, tailored for people with jobs, families, and bills. Without organizations like this, one of the Church's richest spiritual treasures remains locked inside seminary textbooks instead of shaping the decisions of ordinary Catholic parents, workers, and students in places like Sioux Falls.
How You Can Support
- Visit their website at suscipe.org to learn about their programs and resources.
- Make a donation—as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, contributions to Suscipe are tax-deductible.
- Share their resources with your parish, prayer group, or faith community.
- Pray the Suscipe yourself—and let it change your day, your week, your life.
- Subscribe to Discover Catholic Business to help us feature more Catholic nonprofits and ministries.
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Do you have a favorite prayer that has shaped your spiritual life? Have you ever made the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius? What was the experience like? Share in the comments.
Suscipe
- Website: suscipe.org
- Location: Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Type: 501(c)(3) Catholic Nonprofit
- DCB Listing: Find Suscipe on Discover Catholic Business
Sources: Suscipe, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Discover Catholic Business