‘Ignatian prayer’ has often been presented as somehow forced and regimented. Perhaps some retreat directors have been guilty along such lines. But Ignatius invites us to use our imaginations freely. He does not tell us what the road to Bethlehem looks like. Rather he leaves us to find our own road, indeed to find the pathway to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Nicolas Standaert, ‘The Composition of Place: Creating Space for an Encounter’, 7–20
Why is one encouraged to make the 'composition of place'—to imagine the surroundings—in the Spiritual Exercises? Is this a higher or a lower form of prayer? This article explores how some illustrations dating from Ignatius' lifetime help us answer such questions.
Hilary Pearson, ‘The ‘Terrible Sonnets’ of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Spirituality of Depression’, 23–37
Hopkins' so-called 'Terrible Sonnets' emerged from profound mental suffering, of a kind that would probably now be identified as depression. What religious sense can we make of them? How can these texts speak to those suffering from depression today?
Graeme Watson, ‘Poetry and Prayer Beyond Words’, 39–52
Graeme Watson takes the example of George Herbert, the seventeenth-century English poet and priest, to show how poetry opens us to the mystery of a divine silence in which descriptive language breaks down.
Tessa Frank, ‘Gwen John: Her Art and Spirituality’, 53–64
Gwen John has always been overshadowed by her more famous brother, but her work, at least after her conversion to Catholicism in her thirties, is marked by a quite distinctive spirituality. Tessa Frank here explores this dimension of Gwen John's work.
Dana Greene, ‘The Vocation of Denise Levertov’, 65–74
Denise Levertov, who died ten years ago this year, found her way through the years of protest against the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons to Catholicism. Dana Greene here explores how Levertov's vocation gradually matured.
Luis Raúl Cruz, ‘The First Method of Prayer : Prayerful Self-Monitoring’, 77–90
In the Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius gives us three ‘Methods of Prayer’ that are perhaps still too little known. In particular, the first of the three can enrich our sense of prayerful moral responsibility.
Achille Gagliardi, ‘On Preparation for Prayer’, 91–99
One of the earliest and most interesting commentators on the Exercises gives his own distinctive interpretation of the Additional Directions, the Preparatory Prayer, and the Preludes.