Following in the footsteps of Ignatius - Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

National Catholic Reporter, April 13, 2001 by Margot Patterson

"Ignatius would say pay attention to your desires and in your desires is what you are called to do," said Joan Felling. "And that's why you have a spiritual director -- to help you listen to the Spirit."

The emphasis on reflection, interior experience and imagination may account for why people so frequently describe the exercises as transformative in unpredictable ways.

"I describe Ignatius as the great reflector because he has you pray and then reflect in your journal, and then he has you sometimes repeat that," Felling said. "He encourages people to keep careful notes of their prayer, and he kept careful notes and that's why we have the spiritual exercises."

In particular, Ignatius directs retreatants to attend to movements of consolation and desolation they're experiencing within themselves, consolation being described as anything that moves a person to greater hope, faith and love of God and desolation as movements toward selfishness and self.

In reflecting about their own life story as they contemplate Jesus' life and in observing the emotions generated by their prayers, retreatants say they gain both a more intimate relationship with God and a greater understanding of themselves and their deepest desires.

People think of Ignatius as a very organized, intellectual man, but just the opposite is true, Fleming said. "He [Ignatius] is the saint who has given us an understanding of discernment, and discernment is based on feelings. Discernment is learning the language as spoken in or through my feelings. God does not so much touch our. minds as touch our hearts," said Fleming.

Marian Cowan of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, a spiritual director for the exercises and author of a contemporary version of them titled Companions in Grace, said "discerning means I can figure out whether the desires that arise in me come from God or not." Discernment is a tool that helps people to not only determine the decide between the good and bad in their desires but to choose between competing goods, she explained.

Inevitably, the spiritual exercises promote a better appreciation of a saint who's been frequently misunderstood and sometimes vilified over the centuries.

Mysticism of service

Contradictions in the portrayal of Ignatius abound. Perhaps few saints have acquired a reputation so at odds with reality. Often pictured as a stem military man, Ignatius was never a professional soldier but a gentleman at arms inspired by chivalric ideals who, after his conversion, would break into tears sometimes four or five times a day, the effect of the gratitude he felt for God's goodness. Conscious of his own early follies in the spiritual life, he never prescribed set prayers and penances for members of the Society of Jesus, and the spiritual exercises that he spent his life giving were meant to be adapted to every individual's needs and temperament.

Fleming calls Ignatian spirituality a spirituality that is dynamic and active and reflects a mysticism of service. "A lot of people don't associate Ignatius with mysticism at all, but the reason Ignatian spirituality has the flavor it does is because it comes out of his mystical experiences," said Fleming. "Ignatius likes us to enter into our dreams and then he wants our dreams to be shaped by Jesus and the gospels. Ignatian spirituality always calls for creativity. How does it come together -- my dreams and the needs of the world, the church, my family?"