What Are the Spiritual Exercises?

The modern world is moving at a faster pace than it ever has, a frenetic pace that weakens man in facing the setbacks he encounters in his daily life, preventing him from seeing his goal clearly. Convinced of how beneficial it is to dedicate some time in our lives to prayer and retreat, we invite you to do  the Spiritual Exercises according to the method of Saint Ignatius of Loyola , not as just another “retreat”, but as a genre of its own that, due to its particular method, stands out among them, for which it has been widely recommended by the Church. 

Íñigo de Loyola

Who Wrote the Spiritual Exercises?

The author of the Spiritual Exercises was Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Founder of the Society of Jesus, one of the greatest religious orders that has given the Church innumerable fruits, and of whom Lord Macaulay, a Protestant, once said “he is the man who has most influenced our times within the Church.”

Previously known as Íñigo de Loyola, a successful man in the court of the King of Spain and a strategist of his time, Íñigo was wounded in battle and during his convalescence he converted and reflected on the effect that the different thoughts he himself had on him. He abandoned his comfortable life, moved to Manresa and, still a layman, wrote most of his Book of Exercises there, as a practical method for “ordering life according to the will of God”, where he compiled in an orderly manner a series of topics to meditate on, along with practical instructions on how to do these meditations, which he had previously done himself.

Fr. Polanco says that in Manresa, God “taught” Ignatius the exercises . St. Ignatius himself in his Autobiography, speaking in general of the great consolations and supernatural enlightenments he had in Manresa, writes that “at this time God treated him in the same way that a schoolmaster treats a child, teaching him…”

What is the Purpose of the Spiritual Exercises?

To overcome yourself and put your life in order

Throughout the book of the Exercises, St. Ignatius only seeks that each man strives to order his own life according to God’s plan, that is, to seek his own holiness. Father Casanovas, a great commentator on the Ignatian method, affirmed that St. Ignatius with the Exercises offers us “a practical method to know how to live holiness in its most perfect degree, he teaches pure and total holiness, drawing it from the doctrine and the examples of Our Lord Jesus Christ…” Since every Christian is called to holiness , it is assumed that anyone who devotes time to retreat and prayer has seriously decided to follow this desire that God has for everyone. To do so, it is essential to free oneself from all “disordered affection,” that is, from all those loves that are not ordered to God as an end, because it is very difficult to know and do the will of God if one is not willing to renounce one’s own will, which might contain evil or disordered tendencies. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius consist of a combination of talks and meditations in a prayerful atmosphere, during which this knowledge and desire to fulfill the will of God will lead the person doing the exercises to plan his life and to make important decisions in accordance with the divine good pleasure. For this reason, many people who do the Spiritual Exercises come to know and follow the will of God with respect to their vocation. Hence, although discernment of vocation is not the main purpose of the Exercises, they are, I dare to say, a method, almost infallible, of vocational discernment for those who seek God with a righteous heart.