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.