Pope Pius XI's Apostolic Letter 'Meditantibus Nobis' pays tribute to St Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis Xavier, and affirms their enduring importance.
Unfortunately, The Exercises are usually an ecumenical affair these days, divorced from the Catholic context even if held in Catholic run buildings. I made the Full Exercises at a Jesuit retreat centre in order to discern my conversion.
From an Anglican background, I was given a United Reformed Minister as my spiritual director even though the Catholic Church was why I was there. Everyone was encouraged to receive the Eucharist at Mass regardless of faith, background, or state of grace. Confessions weren't really mentioned.
The daily personal conversation with the director was like a free flowing therapy session and outside of that was silent prayer. Rather different to the "preached" Spiritual Exercises our forebears would have encountered. It struck me that discernment has become a weasel word that sanctifies modernism, relativism and wokery in the current Jesuit context. It's probably why the term Jesuit so often signifies something is off the rails these days.
I survived this very expensive experiment with Church 2.0 but headed off to the world of TLM as fast as my newly converted legs would take me.
I'm sorry to hear that. You have gone in the right direction.
Also, the exercises live on in the traditional world—even if the given group doing them may give some amount of time in a more or less tiresome presentation of their "positions" and party lines (as I have heard is the case sometimes). If you can bring a pinch of salt to such things, which surely distract from the retreat, that tedium is still a price worth paying.
I haven't found a trad group doing the Full 30 days for lay people. (I know the SSPX and others have subsets of the Exercises arranged for weekends, 5 or 8 days.) If anyone knows of an English language 30 day offering from a traditional Catholic perspective, UK/Europe, please let me know.
You're right, they are stretched thin. Possible that group of indult benedictines might do it, but I wouldn't want to encourage going there because of the orders question. We will be publishing something interesting which is specifically on the five-day format in due course.
Unfortunately, The Exercises are usually an ecumenical affair these days, divorced from the Catholic context even if held in Catholic run buildings. I made the Full Exercises at a Jesuit retreat centre in order to discern my conversion.
From an Anglican background, I was given a United Reformed Minister as my spiritual director even though the Catholic Church was why I was there. Everyone was encouraged to receive the Eucharist at Mass regardless of faith, background, or state of grace. Confessions weren't really mentioned.
The daily personal conversation with the director was like a free flowing therapy session and outside of that was silent prayer. Rather different to the "preached" Spiritual Exercises our forebears would have encountered. It struck me that discernment has become a weasel word that sanctifies modernism, relativism and wokery in the current Jesuit context. It's probably why the term Jesuit so often signifies something is off the rails these days.
I survived this very expensive experiment with Church 2.0 but headed off to the world of TLM as fast as my newly converted legs would take me.
I'm sorry to hear that. You have gone in the right direction.
Also, the exercises live on in the traditional world—even if the given group doing them may give some amount of time in a more or less tiresome presentation of their "positions" and party lines (as I have heard is the case sometimes). If you can bring a pinch of salt to such things, which surely distract from the retreat, that tedium is still a price worth paying.
I haven't found a trad group doing the Full 30 days for lay people. (I know the SSPX and others have subsets of the Exercises arranged for weekends, 5 or 8 days.) If anyone knows of an English language 30 day offering from a traditional Catholic perspective, UK/Europe, please let me know.
You're right, they are stretched thin. Possible that group of indult benedictines might do it, but I wouldn't want to encourage going there because of the orders question. We will be publishing something interesting which is specifically on the five-day format in due course.