THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES OF St. IGNATIUS LOYOLA

A good definition that helps us to understand what St. Ignatius meant by a spiritual exercise is that it is about taking up a passage of scripture, asking the Holy Spirit to help us in the understanding of God’s Word contained there, letting the insight not only touch the mind but also reach down and impact the heart and the will, and lead to an affective commitment of response to the Lord. St. Ignatius rightly calls that an exercise, but it is spiritual not a physical form of exercise.

He identifies as a basis for all these reflections, what he calls, “the first principle and foundation” of the Spiritual Exercises. Man is created to praise, reverence and to serve God Our Lord and by this means save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in obtaining the end for which he is created. Hence, man is to make use of them in so far as they help him in attainment of his end. He must rid himself of them in so far as they pose a hindrance to him. That is what St. Ignatius says is at the basis of Spiritual Exercises; recognizing our own destiny by virtue of our creation and the relationship with all of created reality in the world, using it constructively in so far as it helps us accomplish the purpose God has given to us, and the willingness to let go of it when it stands in the way.

Ignatius suggested a thirty-day retreat. He broke the retreat down into four weeks. Before the four weeks began, there was a preparatory week to help one to get into the retreat.
The dynamics of the spiritual exercises goes like this:
*The first week, after focusing on the principle and foundation, was to lead
us into Conversion; to meditate on the way in which we have been created; the way in which the Fall has impacted our lives and personal sin has increased; the disorientation within us, the invitation to conversion of ourselves to the Lord.

*The second week looks at the events in the life of the Lord as mysteries
revealing deeper truths, not only about the Lord, but about ourselves.

*The third week focuses specifically upon the events that mark the passion
of the Lord; from Palm Sunday through his betrayal, the last supper and
the trial, passion and his death on Calvary.

*The fourth week then focuses on the victory over sin and death in the
Resurrection, the Ascension and Glorification of the Lord and the
missioning of the disciples.

Notice that Ignatius was convinced that the most important way to transform the world was to bring conversion to the world. Through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius helped in leading people to focus on the deeper understanding of the basic truths of the faith…..the exercises were to help them discover the specific role that God was calling them to live out as disciples of Christ in the world. He developed an extended thirty day retreat for those making a fundamental decision in life. At the end of his exercises he had a series of annotations which were comments for the directors of the retreats on how to handle the different things that might come up in the leading of others through retreats. One of those, that happens to be number nineteen(often called the nineteenth annotation), suggests a way of adapting the Spiritual Exercises for people living in the world by making one serious meditation each day and getting guidance once a week during an extended number of months. That was an adapted way to go through the spiritual exercises for busy people in the world.

Ignatius was committed to the world. He recognized that, in a sense, there are two worlds; the world profoundly created, loved and redeemed by God and the dimensions of the world that have not yet been touched by God’s redemption. He sees the call of the genuine disciple of the Lord, not to enter into a private kind of spiritual life, but to become engaged in the redemption of the world. To see, whatever may be his or her vocation in life, that it s intended to have an impact on extending the redemption of Jesus Christ in the world. When we talk about the Church’s social teaching today; we talk about the profound regard for the dignity and sacredness of the human person and their vocation in life; we talk about the solidarity we have with one another; we talk about the way in which sin has impacted society and conversion has called us to reverse that process....He was convinced that it was to the extent that more and more people were converted in mind and heart and life to Jesus Christ that more justice would prevail in our world.

“The Spiritual Masters”u>,” Video Script and Study Guide”, Session #12, pgs. 11-13, 17-20, by Archbishop Hughes.