The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Since I will be away for a while, I decided to leave a chunk of reading that will last for the entire month. Something of a skeletal summary of the 30-day Exercises, this may give you some idea of what I am engaged in over the next several weeks. What I wish to do is give a short outline of the Exercises for those who want to understand a little more about what I will be doing on retreat, but also to give personal annotations and how the various elements of the spirituality are present in my daily life.

At the very beginning of his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius defines what he means by "spiritual exercises." Using the analogy of physical exercise, which includes everything done in order to improve physical conditioning, spiritual exercise is everything done in order to reach the highest possible state of spiritual conditioning. I have been learning over the past five months that spiritual exercise can be just as exhausting as physical exercise in its own way, so contrary to my vague impressions of yesteryear that the 30-day Exercises is something of an extended vacation to get in touch with one's spiritual faculties, it is far more closely analogous to boot camp.

The Spiritual Exercises are often judged to have an esoteric mystique, but Ignatian spirituality is really a way to understand everyday experience that is common to everyone. The "full" Exercises occurs in the context of the 30-day retreat, but is not confined to that; not only does it occur in a surprisingly diverse array of retreat formats, but the elements found in the Exercises are all applicable to daily life.

Some basic elements:

• The retreat is silent: outside of meeting with a retreat director everyday for up to an hour, attending daily mass, and any other vocal prayer there is no other speaking, music, or other non-ambient sound. This serves multiple purposes, principally fostering a spirit of recollection and interior reflection, but also acknowledging that God speaks through all the events of daily life and not just times formally designated for prayer. 

*In daily life, the grand silence (9 pm to 6 am for us) serves the same purpose

• The retreat is ideally conducted away from home and work: it is convenient for us that the Oblates have a retreat house very near, but it is good to be in an environment different from normal away from the distractions of daily life.

*This is not an essential element; St. Ignatius' 19th Annotation of the Exercises provides for those who are unable to take time away from their daily obligations for a 30-day or eight-day retreat, specifying that they should have 90 minutes set aside for silent prayer daily and meet with their director weekly. And, obviously, all elements of the Exercises used in daily life occur in the home/work environment. But being away really helps eliminate distractions.

• The retreat consists of meditations on the Gospels or a designated theme four or five times daily during the retreat: this is the core activity of the Exercises. The person of Jesus is encountered in praying with the Scriptures, leading to deeper knowledge of him and self. 

*This is one of the core elements of formation throughout novitiate; it is part of the Spiritual Directory of the founder for all Oblates to meditate on the Gospel for at least one hour daily.

• The retreat is about discernment: a major misconception about discernment equates it with decision making. The process of discernment is really about growth in relationship with God, which is another way of saying growth in knowledge of God and knowledge of self; decisions should be made out of this growth, but they are not the direct end in themselves. 

*This misconception probably stems from the fact that most people only make a really intense discernment (such as a 30-day retreat) when they are facing a really major life decision such as one relating to vocation or career, but it is still not correct to conceive of the retreat as being about the choice to be made- once again, choices made on or subsequent to retreat flow from encounter with God, the true goal of the Exercises.

The ultimate way that the Exercises and the Ignatian spirituality of discernment relate to choices is through freedom, which can be seen as the goal of the exercises. True freedom that comes from profound encounter with God and the self-knowledge that it imparts enables decisions to be made based on the experiences in life of how God is drawing one to himself, and to weed out superficial desires that can get all twisted up (but more on that later).



If you are still reading, congratulations! Your reward is further exposition on the structure and content of the Exercises.


The internal structure of the Exercises covers four phases, plus an introductory phase. (In the original text of the Exercises, these phases are referred to as 'weeks,' but contrary to another popular misconception, these do not correspond to chronological weeks but to different graces received in prayer; a person may make a 30-day retreat and remain in the first week the entire time).

A. The First Principle and Foundation (text here).
The Exercises begin (before they actually begin) with the personal experience of divine love. This is where the desire that drives discernment originates: if there is no sense of God creating me in love for a definite end, then there is nothing feeding my desire to know or serve him.

*This is the starting point of all Ignatian prayer; before the Examen, for example, one should "consider for a brief moment that God the Father is beholding me with love."

I. First Week
The goal of the first week is the conviction of personal sin and the experience of God's loving forgiveness, given at great cost to himself. It is not simply an exercise in rejecting one's specific personal sins, but seeking the grace to understand sin from a theocentric perspective, to experience God's own abhorrence of sin.
The most famous part of this week is the fifth exercise: application of the senses to the horrors of hell. It has sometimes been viewed as a way to force conversion by scaring exercitants, but Ignatius clearly specifies that it is not the starting point of the week but a final step of confirmation. The grace received is gratitude for realizing more fully what salvation means.

This is followed by the Kingdom Exercise, in which three questions are posed: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What must I do for Christ?
After the experience of the Foundation and First Week, this question invites one to a subtler, more nuanced way of loving. The Second Week does not begin automatically; Ignatius was clear that the director must see signs that the exercitant is seeking deeper intimacy and has the desire to grow in this more sensitive way of loving God.

II. Second Week
This is the school of discipleship. It is a deeper relationship with a desire to continue growing in knowledge of the other person. The Second Week of the Exercises employs a different set of rules for discernment than the First Week that reflect a more probing sensitivity in relating. This is where Ignatian contemplation, the entrance to intimate encounter through the application of the senses, a prayer that goes deeper than simple consideration, becomes the main component. Through repetitions, the person is affected on the deepest and most intimate dimensions. Ignatius knew that this is the only way that lasting transformation is effected.

The second phase is followed by the Two Standards Exercise, in which the exercitant considers that the only forces in the world are those acting with Christ or with the devil. ("standards" here refers to battle standards, not moral frameworks; the modern equivalent is sports, e.g. there are only two teams on a field). The grace is to examine the opposing mentalities- honor and pride vs. poverty and humility-, to penetrate the meanings of these words, and to realize the sometimes subtle differences between worldly ideas of success and how they can cause one to stray from the ultimate end.

III. Third Week
The focus of the third stage is the Paschal Mystery. It follows upon the first two phases as a deepening of the relationship by accompanying Jesus through his work of redemption. The Second Week begins with contemplating the Incarnation focused on the person of Jesus, but the subsequent contemplations are distinctly trinitarian even when focusing on the earthly life of Jesus.
The grace of the Third Week involves overcoming personal selfishness to a higher degree and identifying personal suffering more closely with Christ's Passion. Part of this is realizing the effect of personal sin, a connection back to the First Week and the "hard consolation" of learning the cost of love.

The following exercises are not fixed but can fall anywhere after the Second Week:
One is meditation on the Three Classes of Persons, a consideration of natural attachments and how they can prevent full commitment to God. Three types of people come into a large sum of money; the first feels attachment and, although desiring to make the right decision in regard to it, they never act on this desire and simply procrastinate. The second person feels attachment and, acting impulsively, preempts the will of God in the matter. He has an awareness of his inner dynamics, but although determined to do the "right thing," this is done without consultation to ascertain what God is asking. The third class of person will make a definitive decision, but without forcing it. He will take time for prayer and contemplation and not act until he has attained the freedom of embracing God's will, which might be in keeping the money as much as giving it away, not confusing the will of God with human intuition.

The other is the meditation on the Three Degrees of Humility and Love. This, like the previous exercise, is not something that is grounded in personality traits or temperament but is more of a test to see how far one has progressed in spiritual maturation; these degrees are a concrete illustration of love's process of becoming identified with whom is loved. In the first type, eternal salvation is so important that nothing can entice seriously to offense of the Beloved, love to the extent of never going against the Beloved's explicitly stated desire, something only possible after a deep experience of love. The second type builds on this and involves the sensitivity to detect the implicit, unstated desires of the Beloved and an eagerness to respond to those desires. This degree of love presumes the freedom of indifference to natural goods such as honor, wealth, health, longevity, etc. The third degree is a class of its own: the desire of imitation has been shed for the desire of unity, the desire for identification with the Beloved and the experience of joy when sharing poverty, contempt, and humiliation with Christ.

IV. Fourth Week
The last stage in the Exercises starts with the Resurrection and focuses on daily life, how life is affected by this deeper encounter with God and what things look like going forward. This is the stage of resolutions for daily life, but resolutions centered on being, not doing; this stage is about a new realization of who the exercitant feels called to be from this experience, a discernment of personal vocation distinct from discerning state in life.

The Contemplation to Attain Love is a rich revisitation of the previous stages of the exercises and the grace to be attained is complex, touching some or all of the previous experiences.

*It is important to note that, while the exercises are presented in a linear and consecutive manner for the formal Exercises, spirituality in daily life is never so neat. In a daily experience of prayer, one may experience some or all of the stages or 'weeks' of the Exercises in no particular order.

Saint Francis de Sales on Sadness

I wanted to share another gem from Saint Francis de Sales from Introduction to the Devout Life. This excerpt gives advice for times of struggle with sadness and melancholy, the times when it is difficult to pray and to embrace the will of God and these become necessary as sacrifices. The principle that Saint Ignatius enshrined in his Exercises is apparent here- to work against the evil spirit and ignore the suggestive thoughts that arise in spiritual desolation.



The Evil One delights in sadness and melancholy, because they are his own characteristics.

He will be in sadness and sorrow through all Eternity, and he would fain have all others the same.

The “sorrow of the world” disturbs the heart, plunges it into anxiety, stirs up unreasonable fears, disgusts it with prayer, overwhelms and stupefies the brain, deprives the soul of wisdom, judgment, resolution and courage, weakening all its powers.

In a word, it is like a hard winter, blasting all the earth’s beauty, and numbing all animal life; for it deprives the soul of sweetness and power in every faculty.

Should you, my daughter, ever be attacked by this evil spirit of sadness, make use of the following remedies.

[…] Prayer is a sovereign remedy, it lifts the mind to God, Who is our only Joy and Consolation.

But when you pray let your words and affections, whether interior or exterior, all tend to love and trust in God.

“O God of Mercy, most Loving Lord, Sweet Saviour, Lord of my heart, my Joy, my Hope, my Beloved, my Bridegroom.”

Vigorously resist all tendencies to melancholy, and although all you do may seem to be done coldly, wearily and indifferently, do not give in.

The Enemy strives to make us languid in doing good by depression, but when he sees that we do not cease our efforts to work, and that those efforts become all the more earnest by reason of their being made in resistance to him, he leaves off troubling us.

Make use of hymns and spiritual songs; they have often frustrated the Evil One in his operations, as was the case when the evil spirit which possessed Saul was driven forth by music and psalmody.

It is well also to occupy yourself in external works, and that with as much variety as may lead us to divert the mind from the subject which oppresses it, and to cheer and kindle it, for depression generally makes us dry and cold.

[…] Moderate bodily discipline is useful in resisting depression, because it rouses the mind from dwelling on itself; and frequent Communion is specially valuable; the Bread of Life strengthens the heart and gladdens the spirits.

Lay bare all the feelings, thoughts and longings which are the result of your depression to your confessor or director, in all humility and faithfulness; seek the society of spiritually-minded people, and frequent such as far as possible while you are suffering.

And, finally, resign yourself into God’s Hands, endeavouring to bear this harassing depression patiently, as a just punishment for past idle mirth. Above all, never doubt but that, after He has tried you sufficiently, God will deliver you from the trial.

Francis de Sales (1567-1622): Introduction to the Devout Life, 4, 12.

Saint Francis de Sales: Act of Abandonment

To celebrate Saint Francis de Sales, a master of the spiritual life whose work I have come to appreciate more fully over the past couple of years, I would like to share his Act of Abandonment.

I love this prayer and return to it frequently because it not only addresses carrying the cross given to us, but embracing it and venerating it, approaching it with reverence because it has been given to us for our salvation. When I struggle with spiritual desolation and feel the weight, it is not 'being tough' and soldiering on that carries me through, but recalling that I am following Jesus in his great outpouring of love.


O my God, I thank you and I praise you 
for accomplishing your holy and all-lovable will 
without any regard for mine. 
With my whole heart, 
in spite of my heart, 
do I receive this cross I feared so much! 

It is the cross of Your choice, 
the cross of Your love. 
I venerate it; 
nor for anything in the world 
would I wish that it had not come, 
since You willed it. 

I keep it with gratitude and with joy, 
as I do everything that comes from Your hand; 
and I shall strive to carry it without letting it drag, 
with all the respect 
and all the affection which Your works deserve. 

Amen.

Novice Life: On the Rocks

We are preparing for the Spiritual Exercises at the end of the month, and while things are becoming a lot more intense it is good to have opportunities to get out more and do some recreation. Friday we went rock climbing at a gym and had a great time. 

The theologians were more experienced climbers; it was the first time for all the novices, and although it is a very physically demanding activity and tough to start out, we all had a really good time. 

Spiritual Thought: Sentire and Sapere

Novitiate is an experience that is difficult to describe, partly because much of it is deeply personal, but also because of its nature as raw experience, a direct communication through sense powers.

Saint Ignatius expressed this in the Spiritual Exercises by using the verb sentir rather than saber to express what is important in the spiritual life. (The words in Latin are sentire and sapere, which correspond to French sentir and savoir and Armenian kidenal and imanal).

The neat difference between the two verbs is something difficult to describe concisely in English, but roughly it is the difference between experiential knowledge and pure intellectual knowledge; sentir knowledge is felt and experienced through the senses, whether the external senses or the internal senses of imagination and memory. It is knowledge acquired through first-hand rather than second-hand experience, and can therefore be more difficult to communicate because it comes through wordless sensation rather than a verbal formula.

Saint Ignatius explains this in his Second Annotation to the Exercises, in which he instructs the retreat director to relate the points for meditation briefly in order to allow the exercitant more freedom for the experience that occurs in the meditation, 

For, if the person who is making the Contemplation takes the true groundwork of the narrative, and, discussing and considering for himself, finds something which makes the events a little clearer or brings them a little more home to him -- whether this comes through his own reasoning, or because his intellect is enlightened by the Divine power -- he will get more spiritual relish and fruit than if he who is giving the Exercises had much explained and amplified the meaning of the events. For it is not knowing much [saber], but realizing and relishing things interiorly [sentir], that contents and satisfies the soul.

-Spiritual Exercises, Second Annotation

His insight into prayer and how the human person experiences God through the senses relates what many consider arcane mysticism to the life of everyman. By the sixteenth century, Christian spirituality in the west threatened to split into scholastic intellectualism and spiritualist quietism, but his understanding of an integrated person calls for balance between sense experience and intellect within the mind.

This is why I contend that Ignatius has an Eastern Soul, one that transcends the dichotomy between mystical experience and intellectual definition and bridges the gap between the pietist and rationalist world views that later sprang up and have come to dominate modern thought. 

People versed in Catholic theology would be puzzled if Ignatius were referred to as a theologian; he studied but never taught nor wrote what are considered works of theology. But in the original sense used by the Cappadocian Doctors, a theologian is one who has a deep experience of God and shares it with others, in which sense the Spiritual Exercises is a profoundly theological work and Ignatius a theologian par excellence. 

Saint Aphrahat on Fasting

I know, I know; it is a little early to be anticipating Lent, but since I will be fasting as part of the Spiritual Exercises I am doing some reading to prepare, including a catechesis on fasting by Saint Aphrahat the Persian on various ways of fasting and mortifying the passions.

St. Ephrem, St. Isaac, St. Aphrahat

A pure fast is excellent before God and is guarded as a treasure in heaven. And it is a weapon against the evil one and a shield intercepting the arrows of the enemy (Ephesians 6:16). And I have not said this according to my way of thinking, but according to the Holy Books which have shown us beforehand that the fasting was a helper in all times for those who have fasted truly. For fasting, my beloved, was not only this abstaining from bread and water, but many are the observances of fasting.

For there is he who fasts from bread and water until he will hunger and thirst.

And there is he who fasts to remain in virginity, who hungers but does not eat; who thirsts but does not drink; and this fast is more excellent.

And for he who fasts in sexual abstinence, it is also fasting.

And there is he who fasts from flesh, wine and various foods.

And there is he who fasts to put up a barrier to his mouth so that he will not speak hateful words.

And there is he who fasts from anger and controls his inclination so that he is not vanquished.

And there is he who fasts from possessions so that he may empty himself for his work.

And there is he who fasts from various kinds of mattresses so that he will be vigilant in prayer.

And there is he who, in affliction, fasts from the things of this world so that he will not be injured by the enemy.

And there is he who fasts that he may mourn, so that he may be pleasing in the affliction to his Lord.

And there is he who gathers all these things together and makes these a single fast.

As in the case of someone who fasts from nourishment until he becomes hungry—once he has fasted from eating and from drinking, he is called an abstainer, but if he takes a little food and drink, he breaks his fast:—so a man who fasts from all these, and if he breaks at times on of these things, again his fast will no longer be reckoned for him. Whoever breaks one of these things, his fast will not be counted, as in the case of the one who eats and drinks greedily. And he who as a result of his hunger happens to break his fast, his sin is not great; but one who abstained from all these things and has proceeded to break one or other of these things, his sin is great and not small.

St Aphrahat the Persian. From Demonstration 3, On Fasting.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus on the Baptism of the Lord

Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world.

The words of Saint Gregory in the Office of Readings for today's feast struck me very strongly. The Spiritual Exercises that I am preparing for are all about becoming free in order to live out God's calling most fully. 

Making a landmark retreat like this may involve an Election- the specific discernment of a question such as "Should I profess vows with this religious order?" or "Am I called to marriage?" or "Is a career in teaching right for me?"- but if the question remains on the level of state in life or career, then the greatest depth of vocation is being missed.

Every person has a personal vocation, one that is entirely unique, a way of loving God and neighbor that is different from every other created person. This vocation is not about the functions of a state in life but about deepest identity.

In the Feast of the Baptism, we celebrate the fullness of revelation of the identity of Jesus Christ as the beloved Son of God, the identity in which all of ours are hidden. His birth and manifestation was all for the purpose of revealing this to us and showing us the way to realize our personal vocations, to embrace our identities as beloved children and be converted to the light where we will grow and flourish.   

Second reading

From a Sermon by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop

The baptism of Christ

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists. Then John says: I ought to be baptized by you. He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. I ought to be baptized by you: we should also add, “and for you,” for John is to be baptized in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Novice Life: Novice Beer

Fr. Shawn does a weekday Mass for the nursing home of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Somerville every so often with the novices in tow. During the Advent season, they had a big display of raffle items for a Christmas fundraiser that included a case of Spencer Trappist Ale. After walking past it a couple of times, we mentioned it on the third visit and Fr. Shawn decided to enter us. We won 16 bottles of the most expensive non-specialty domestic beer with four etched glasses and other accessories.

Spencer Ale is the only Trappist beer brewed outside of six monasteries in Belgium. The equipment for the brewery was all imported from Europe and the yeast was also imported from cultures used in Benedictine monasteries since the eighth century, making it the oldest yeast culture in European beer.

We have decided that the reputation is earned and that our novitiate now has an official beverage.