Are you being invited into a deeper space of quiet with the Divine? Are you in the middle of a discernment or choosing something new in your life? Do you need some intentional daily space to reflect on God’s work in your life?

Perhaps the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life could provide this space for you. The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries, the Exercises were most commonly given as a “long retreat” of about 30 days in solitude and silence. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on the Spiritual Exercises as a program called a “retreat in daily life,” which involves a monthslong program of daily prayer and meetings with a spiritual director. This allows you to make a retreat during the course of your ordinary living without having to forgo, for a time, your commitment to work, family and friends.

Angela is trained to walk individuals, couples and groups through the Spiritual Exercises in whatever matter of time works. Please ask her more about it.

In the Spiritual Exercises, the retreatant engages in an intimate encounter with Jesus, journeying with him from his birth to his death and resurrection. The Exercises are good for increasing one’s openness to the movement of the Spirit, for bringing to light hindrances within us that may obstruct one’s attunement to the Spirit and their truest self, and for strengthening and supporting them to open more fully to God’s boundless love and live more freely from this truth.

The Structure of the Exercises
Ignatius organized the Exercises into four “weeks.” These are not seven-day weeks, but stages on a journey to spiritual freedom and wholehearted commitment to the service of God.

First week. The first week of the Exercises is a time of reflection on our lives in light of God’s boundless love for us. We see that our response to God’s love has been hindered by patterns of sin. We face these sins knowing that God wants to free us of everything that gets in the way of our loving response to him. The first week ends with a meditation on Christ’s call to follow him.

Second week. The meditations and prayers of the second week teach us how to follow Christ as his disciples. We reflect on Scripture passages: Christ’s birth and baptism, his sermon on the mount, his ministry of healing and teaching, his raising Lazarus from the dead. We are brought to decisions to change our lives to do Christ’s work in the world and to love him more intimately.

Third week. We meditate on Christ’s Last Supper, passion, and death. We see his suffering and the gift of the Eucharist as the ultimate expression of God’s love.

Fourth week. We meditate on Jesus’ resurrection and his apparitions to his disciples. We walk with the risen Christ and set out to love and serve him in concrete ways in our lives in the world.

Prayer in the Exercises
The two primary forms of praying taught in the Exercises are meditation and contemplation. In meditation, we use our minds. We ponder the basic principles that guide our life. We pray over words, images, and ideas.

Contemplation is more about feeling than thinking. Contemplation often stirs the emotions and enkindles deep desires. In contemplation, we rely on our imaginations to place ourselves in a setting from the Gospels or in a scene proposed by Ignatius. We pray with Scripture. We do not study it.

The discernment of spirits underlies the Exercises. We notice the interior movements of our hearts and discern where they are leading us. A regular practice of discernment helps us make good decisions.

All the characteristic themes of Ignatian spirituality are grounded in the Exercises. These include a sense of collaboration with God’s action in the world, spiritual discernment in decision making, generosity of response to God’s invitation, fraternity and companionship in service, and a disposition to find God in all things. Spiritual integration is a prominent theme of the Exercises: integration of contemplation and action, prayer and service, and emotions and reason.