The Spiritual Exercises are intended, according to paragraph 21, to help the person making them ‘to overcome oneself, and to order one’s life, without reaching a decision through some disordered affection’. This is certainly clear, but it is also likely to be off-putting to someone approaching the work today. The idea of introducing a little more order into one’s life might have its attractions, at least for those of a certain temperament. But taking a month ‘to overcome oneself’ sounds a great deal less enticing. It smacks of muscular Christianity, and an approach to God that many of us are likely to see as both outdated and unproductive. Yet the Spiritual Exercises as a book, and the making of them as a practice, have never been more popular. Maybe the word ‘overcome’ lies at the root of the problem. It points to a reality that is often hard to face: the reality that there are things in my life that get in the way when I attempt to draw closer to God, or to allow God to draw closer to me. These are things that need to be overcome if the aim of the Exercises’ programme is to succeed. The crucial realisation is, however, that they are not overcome principally by my own efforts. It is, in the last instance, God who overcomes, and my part is to be open to God’s work, not to try and replace this work with my own.
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