Welcome to Day 5 of the Online Spiritual Exercises! Today we continue to meditate on the Principle and Foundation, focusing on the end of man and of creatures. 

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.

Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him.

Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition. Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to spickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. The same holds for all other things.

Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.

Note

All excerpts from The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are from the “Puhl” Translation published by Loyola Press. The newer edition of book can be purchased here or viewed for free on Internet Archive here.