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 It smacks of muscular Christianity, and an approach to God that many of us are likely to see as both outdated and unproductive.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.
Philip Shano, ‘Dining with Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Rules for Regulating One’s Eating’, 9–22
The book of the Spiritual Exercises includes a great variety of techniques and methods to help someone who is intent on drawing closer to God. As well as prayer forms, Ignatius includes more practical guidelines for daily living. Here Philip Shano looks at the contemporary relevance of one set of these, the ‘Rules for Regulating One’s Eating’.
Paul Nicholson, ‘‘On You I Muse through the Night’: The Midnight Meditation in the Spiritual Exercise’, 23–30
Anyone making the full Spiritual Exercises in their enclosed, month-long form may well be recommended to pray repeatedly in the middle of the night. Is this suggestion any more than a remnant of the late medieval piety with which Ignatius grew up? Paul Nicholson argues that, on the contrary, current science offers pointers to the benefits of such a practice.
Tom Shufflebotham, ‘El Gran Capitán: An Influence on Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises?’, 31–43
It is widely recognised that, in composing the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius drew on his own experience of prayer, but also of his life before his conversion. Tom Shufflebotham draws our attention to one possible significant influence, the ‘Gran Capitán’ Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, commander-in-chief of the armies of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella around the time of Ignatius’ birth.
Brian O’Leary, ‘Ignatian Mysticism and Contemporary Culture’, 54–66
If at one time Ignatius was viewed as the quintessential ‘soldier-saint’, he is currently more likely to be seen as one standing in the mystical tradition. Brian O’Leary recognises that this is in part due to an appreciation of certain ‘peak experiences’ he is known to have enjoyed in his prayer. But there is, he suggests, an ‘everyday mysticism’ discernible in the Ignatian story that is just as relevant for those who adopt his spirituality today.
Mark Argent, ‘Reclaiming the Particular Examen’, 57–69
Ignatius offers two forms of ‘examen’ near the beginning of the Exercises. The more general one invites retreatants to recognise more fully the presence of God in their daily lives. The other focuses on particular patterns of behaviour in order to modify them. Mark Argent here presents this ‘particular examen’ in the light of modern psychology.
Joseph Bracken, ‘The Contemplation to Attain Love as an Experience of Pentecost: Theological Implications’, 71–81
The Spiritual Exercises end with the ‘Contemplation to Attain Love’. Joseph Bracken believes that this prayer has the capacity to evoke in a retreatant an experience similar to that enjoyed by the first disciples on the day of Pentecost. Both experiences point to future mission, and offer the grace needed to carry this out.
Geoff New, ‘Third Things First: Preaching and Ignatian Contemplation’, 83–93
Starting from the premise that today, in many parts of the Church, ‘explanation of the gospel has overshadowed experience of the gospel’, Geoff New finds in the Exercises a remedy for this situation. There is, he argues, no better way to ‘nurture and form a biblical and Christ-centred imagination’, and in this article he gives us a practical example.
Robert E. Doud, ‘Ignatian Indifference and Today’s Spirituality’, 94–105
The word ‘indifference’ can suggest either a cold, uncaring attitude towards a person, situation or question or the, perhaps hard-won, ability to stand back from our own immediate concerns in order to see with greater clarity. It is the latter that much of the Spiritual Exercises aims at attaining, but how is this standpoint to be best understood and appreciated? Robert Doud offers some answers here.