St. Ignatius and the "Spiritual Exercises"

Today, the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who lived from 1491-1556. As I mentioned in my homily at Mass this morning, St. Ignatius wrote much about how to discern if certain things in our lives are from God or not. These writings would become known as the “Spiritual Exercises” which many people use to this day and which I highly recommend. The following two sources (americancatholic.org and the Office of Readings) speak about the life of St. Ignatius and the Exercises:


1) “The founder of the Jesuits was on his way to military fame and fortune when a cannon ball shattered his leg. Because there were no books of romance on hand during his convalescence, he whiled away the time reading a life of Christ and lives of the saints. His conscience was deeply touched, and a long, painful turning to Christ began…After a period of great peace of mind, he went through a harrowing trial of scruples. There was no comfort in anything—prayer, fasting, sacraments, penance. At length, his peace of mind returned.

It was during this year of conversion that he began to write down material that later became his greatest work, the Spiritual Exercises…

Ignatius was a true mystic. He centered his spiritual life on the essential foundations of Christianity—the Trinity, Christ, the Eucharist. His spirituality is expressed in the Jesuit motto, ad majorem Dei gloriam—‘for the greater glory of God.’”

2) “While reading the life of Christ our Lord or the lives of the saints, he would reflect and reason with himself: ‘What if I should do what Saint Francis or Saint Dominic did?’ In this way he let his mind dwell on many thoughts; they lasted a while until other things took their place. Then those vain and worldly images would come into his mind and remain a long time. This sequence of thoughts persisted with him for a long time.

But there was a difference. When Ignatius reflected on worldly thoughts, he felt intense pleasure; but when he gave them up out of weariness, he felt dry and depressed. Yet when he thought of living the rigorous sort of life he knew the saints had lived, he not only experienced pleasure when he actually thought about it, but even after he dismissed these thoughts, he still experienced great joy. Yet he did not pay attention to this, nor did he appreciate it until one day, in a moment of insight, he began to marvel at the difference. Then he understood the experience: thoughts of one kind left him sad, the others full of joy. And this was the first time he applied a process of reasoning to his religious experience. Later on, when he began to formulate his spiritual exercises, he used this experience as an illustration to explain the doctrine he taught his disciples on the discernment of spirits.”