Why should I make an Ignatian Retreat?
The 'Spiritual Exercises' of St Ignatius Loyola can change lives. Fr Aloysius Ambruzzi SJ explains why.
The 'Spiritual Exercises' of St Ignatius Loyola can change lives. Fr Aloysius Ambruzzi SJ explains why.
In this piece, Fr Aloysius Ambruzzi SJ tells us:
Why the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius are not just a method of prayer, but a life-changing opportunity of conversion to God.
How the Retreat compels the soul to face the great drama of salvation, where it must choose between the way of Christ and the snares of Satan.
What makes the Exercises so effective: their ability to strip away illusions, form true self-mastery, and lead the soul to perfect conformity with God’s Will.
He shows us that an Ignatian retreat (even in a reduced 5-day format) is no ordinary spiritual practice; it is a school of divine wisdom and a battlefield of the soul, with long-lasting effects after the retreat itself.
Those who enter it with sincerity cannot leave unchanged: they will either surrender wholly to God or come face to face with the cost of rejecting Him.
The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius
The General Aim and Structure of
The Spiritual Exercises
Fr Aloysius Ambruzzi SJ
From The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius—with a commentary by Aloysius Ambruzzi SJ, 1939.
The General Aim and Structure of
The Spiritual Exercises
I. The goal of the spiritual life
Eternal salvation is achieved by the soul’s perfect union with God through knowledge and love. Heaven is the home of light, where our soul becomes one with the Divine Essence. It is the home of love, where our will is made one with the Will of God, and attains thereby perfect happiness. During our lifetime we climb to it, using as steps the various gifts and creatures that God puts at our disposal, and the circumstances in which He pleases to place us.
Everything should lead us to know and love God. His Holy Will must be the one rule of our life. All our being and activity must be raised to a higher plane—the plane of God Himself—through union with Christ, brought about chiefly by the Sacraments, and in the Society which He has established to continue His work on earth—our Holy Mother the Church. This is spiritual life. It holds good equally for all—there are no esoteric doctrines in Christianity—and it bears no substantial alteration.
What, then, are the so-called different methods of Christian asceticism and spiritual life?
They are various ways of presenting the same truths. They differ in laying stress on one particular phase of Christian life, by focussing our eye on one trait more than on others of the infinite and inexhaustible personality of Christ. All methods, however, hark back to the same principles: Deny thyself, follow Christ, do God's Will, love others and sacrifice thy self for them. If they do not, they are but snares and tricks of the Evil One.
Accordingly we must necessarily be disappointed if we look for something new and startling in the Exercises of St Ignatius.
How is it then, that they have been so highly praised not only by so many Saints, and by many Popes from Paul III down to the reigning Pontiff Pius XI, but even by non-Catholics and unbelievers?
The characteristic feature of the Exercises lies in the new and compelling way with which they bring home to the Retreatant old and familiar truths. Man is moved mostly by reason and love, by logic and by enthusiasm. The Exercises forcibly develop both. One cannot go through them seriously without wholly surrendering oneself into the hands of God and being driven to own that to be a reasonable being one must live a Christian life.
II. The nature and origin of the Spiritual Exercises
What are the Spiritual Exercises? The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius is a little book containing a series of meditations on the most important truths of Christianity and on the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ our Lord, along with many instructions rules and warnings to guide the soul in and out of Retreat, and to train it in some of the most essential practices of the spiritual life, such as Prayer and Examination of Conscience.
St Ignatius retired to Manresa towards the end of March 1522. That town has always been considered as the cradle of the Exercises, and the cave where the Saint often used to withdraw to pray—now enclosed within a magnificent church—as the spot where the Exercises were written under particular inspiration of God and of the Blessed Virgin. By this it is not meant that the Exercises were completed when the Saint left Manresa. A recorded statement of the Saint excludes such a supposition:
“I did not compose the Exercise all at once. When anything resulting from my own experience seemed to me likely to be of use to others, I took note of it.”
And Fr Nadal, who knew the Saint most intimately, states that:
“… after having completed his studies at Paris, the author put together the first attempts of the Exercises, made many additions, arranged them in order, and presented the work for the examination and judgment of the Holy See.”
The Exercises must certainly have been completed by the year 1541, when they were first translated literally into Latin. This translation, and another more perfect from a literary point of view, were approved by Paul III in 1548. However, it was only the latter that was preferred for publication.
St Ignatius took the subject-matter of the Exercises from Holy Scripture, the teaching of the Church, the devotional practices of the time, and from what he experienced in his own soul and in the souls of those whom he happened to direct.
It is this last element that makes the book so intensely personal and so profoundly psychological. It is a compact whole, and not a mere collection of exercises and of directions. It is the history of the soul in its struggle to reach God.
III. The Spiritual Exercises as a “Divine Drama”
The Exercises are truly a divine drama—the drama of the soul. The soul is the great actor, with God and Christ, the whole universe and Satan around it, to influence it without destroying its freedom. The scene is the soul itself—the impregnable castle of man's free will, where all the greatest events of life take place and where alone victories are gained and defeats suffered. The time is every moment of this temporal life. Amicus Dei esse si voluero, ecce nunc fio.
It is the only real drama of life, because it throbs all through with eternal issues—God or no God: man with God for his Father, or man an outcast from God and that for ever—eternal salvation or misery without end.
IV. Principle and Foundation: Man’s ultimate purpose
The drama opens with a joyful overture—the introductory meditation on the Foundation. There is here none of the sadness and misery of the pagans for whom the gods are jealous or insatiable beings, and life is a long thread of sufferings, woven by a cruel and implacable fate.
“Nothing, then, is more wretched anywhere than man, of all that breathes and creeps upon this earth.”1
There is none of the naturalism of our times that makes man but a part of a cosmos destined one day to be resolved for ever into its elements. Existence is not an enigma, nor is life only sorrow and misery. God, the Almighty and All-good, has created everyone of us, our body out of existing elements, and our soul, a spiritual and immortal being out of nothing. And He has created us out of love, to make us the partakers of His own life and of His own happiness. We come from Him and we must rise to Him again through created things, as by so many steps.
The Foundation contains the most important natural truths concerning our destiny: the absolute dependence of everyone of us and of everything else on God, our immortality, and the use of created things as means to reach the Creator. In our turning to God through His creatures, conversio ad Deum per creaturas, there lies order and beauty, happiness and perfection.
V. The Kingdom of Satan and the reality of sin
God’s enemy, the principle of evil, makes then his appearance to destroy God’s work. God should be the last end of spiritual and human beings. All creatures must be means to go and reach Him. Evil and with it disorder, ugliness, misery and malice, lies in setting oneself as the ultimate end of life and in using everything else for one’s own satisfaction, independently of God. It is the rational creature’s turning away from God to fix his affection upon some created object: aversio a Deo in creaturas.
The angels were first to raise in Heaven the cry of rebellion, Non serviam. It was the greatest disorder and subversion, described by Holy Scripture as a mighty battle that shook the whole universe.
“And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels. And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.”2
At Satan’s instigation our first parents, in the Garden of Eden refused submission to God’s Holy Will and turned away from Him. By Adam’s Sin the enemy of God succeeded in laying the foundation of his kingdom on earth—a kingdom where but one law prevails, amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei.
Each one of us has followed in the footsteps of our first parents. Not satisfied with having made of us disinherited children and criminals condemned to death, and with having fanned in our heart the fire of concupiscence and evil passions, Satan has strengthened his dominion over us through our repeated violations of the Law of God and our inordinate love of creatures.
St Ignatius graphically portrays the feature of the kingdom of Satan. It is the kingdom of sin and rebellion. It is the kingdom of disorder. It is the kingdom of the concupiscence of the flesh, of the concupiscence of the eyes, and of the pride of life.
If the conversio ad Deum per creaturas means order, beauty, happiness and perfection even in this life; sin or aversio a Deo in creaturas, must necessarily entail disorder, ugliness, misery and malice even in this world. It is what St Ignatius puts before the Exercitant in strikingly realistic pictures.
The body becomes a dead weight, a prison, and an instrument of sin. The sinner becomes the slave of his passions and of his caprices, and falls below the level of brutes. His heart is a kind of “ulcer and abscess whence have issued so many sins and so many iniquities and such vile poison.” The creatures to which he is daily doing violence, seem to cry vengeance against him. The earth itself would open to swallow him, creating new hells that he may suffer in them for ever.
The sinner’s life is in truth an anticipated hell. Hell is nothing else but the soul fixed in opposition to God, and the misery that follows from it. An outcast from God is an outcast from creation. Contact with fellow-creatures, whether spiritual or corporeal, can give him nothing but pain. In other words, the creatures that properly used should have been steps to God and sources of joy, become steps towards the lower abyss, and the means of eternal torment for the senses. “By what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented.”3
This especially St Ignatius wants to bring home to the Exercitant in the Contemplation on Hell, with which the First Week or First Part of the Exercises ends.
VI. The Call of Christ the King
In the First Part of the Exercises, the Exercitant was allowed to catch, now and then, glimpses of Christ, his Saviour and Redeemer. In the Second Part, Christ comes forward as a King, to fight and destroy the kingdom of Satan and re-establish the Kingdom of God in the world and, above all, within each soul. This is His plan: the restoration of the whole of mankind by Him and in Him. His strategy is clear. As means to go to God, creatures have proved treacherous; they have turned man away from his Creator. Christ will teach him how to use them properly.
In a series of tableaux of our Lord’s Life, carefully chosen and arranged, St Ignatius shows us the use which Christ makes of the various creatures of this world—its riches, its honours, its pleasures. All the time, he wants us to remain in close companionship with the Divine King Who has called everyone of us to follow Him. We are to live under His tent, feed at His table, dress like Him, watch, fight and suffer with Him. The scenes which we contemplate are not things of the past, but something that is being enacted now, in us and for us.
VII. The Two Standards and the Three Classes of Men
St Ignatius takes it for granted that we all ardently desire to go wherever Christ leads us, and to follow Him to the end. Still in His army there are various ranks, just as in His Father’s house there are many mansions. We must, then, find out in what rank He wants each one of us to fight under Him.
To make sure that we are not deceived in this most important work St Ignatius, after the Contemplation of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, offers for our consideration a few masterly meditations. They are a course on spiritual strategy to train the true soldiers and captains of the Divine King.
There comes, first, the meditation on the Two Standards. Naturally, there is no question here of deliberating which of the two, Christ or Satan, we should follow; nor of choosing between good and evil, the fulfilment of duty or its neglect. The things we are asked to deliberate about, are in themselves neither good nor bad—riches, honours, the esteem of men on one side, and on the other poverty, concealment, neglect and dishonour.
The Exercitant is made to examine the mind of the two leaders, Christ and Lucifer, on these matters, their views and their advice. Further, he is made to see how riches and honours ordinarily lead to unbounded pride and to all other vices, while poverty and contempt lead to humility and to all other virtues. Inflamed with the love of the Divine King, and sure that what He has chosen is absolutely the best, the Exercitant desires to follow Him under the flag of the Cross, in poverty and in humility of heart, and, so far as it pleases God, even in privation and contempt.
Then follows the Meditation on the Three Classes. Its aim is to show that the Exercitant should not be satisfied with mere desires or velleities. How many there are who conceive the bravest resolutions, and yet never screw up their courage to act: procrastination is their motto. How many others there are who can only adopt half measures, who will do everything except just what they have to do.
It is against these delusions that St Ignatius wishes to warn the soul. It is not enough to want what Christ has chosen, and to profess one’s readiness, and even desire, to embrace it, if so He wills. We have to go further. Is there anything to which our heart is attached—not sinfully, let that be understood—but still in such a way as to feel it a burden and an impediment to the peace of our soul? Let us lay it aside, never to be taken up again, unless we know such to be God’s Will.
VIII. The Election: God’s Will and the Three Types of Humility
Man’s perfection consists, as has been said, in submitting himself to God’s Holy Will in everything. “Human nature,” says St Thomas, “can never be perfected unless it be united to God.” At this point of the Exercises, St Ignatius sums up his teaching on this matter by describing three ways, one more perfect than the other, of submitting our will to that of God.
In the first, a man is determined to submit himself to the Will of God in such a way as not to break any commandment whether Divine or human, which binds under mortal sin, even though its transgression might lead to wealth, honours, health and long life; or its observance might entail poverty, dishonour, sickness and death itself. In other words, while pursuing the good things of the world, he refuses to adhere to them as his last end. He will not have any of them, nor will he shrink from their opposite, at the cost of committing a mortal sin.
In the second, a man entertains the same feelings in matters which involve but venial sin. However, he does not now pursue the goods of this world, but when the service of God and the salvation of his soul are equally secured in either way, he does not desire, nor feel himself attached to riches more than to poverty, to honour more than to dishonour, to a long life more than to a short one.
In the third, a man embraces all that Christ has embraced, poverty and above all humiliations, instead of riches and honour, even if God be equally pleased with either and there would accrue to God the same glory and to him the same merit. In his choice, he is moved merely by the love of Christ and by the desire to be like Him in everything. Something is added to the disposition of the Third Class. There, on the supposition that God be equally pleased, one might have preferred riches to poverty. Here, however, he chooses poverty unice ex amore Christi, utque ei magis actu similis fiat.
Thus disposed, the Exercitant is quite fit to hear the call of God and to follow it.
Through the primary object of the Election is to help the Exercitant in the choice of a state of life, it may well be used to find out God’s Will on any matter of moment, and especially to determine what will help him to serve and praise God better in the state of life which he has already embraced. In every case, the person must have but one aim in view: to please God and to save his soul.
This aim must be the first and principal motive of all the steps he takes, though not necessarily to the exclusion of every natural attraction or dislike. The Saint does not set aside the light and knowledge which is obtained in such matters by feeling consolation or desolation, and by the experience of the discernment of various spirits. Reason, however must test all; reason free from inordinate attachment and enlightened by Faith; while prayer must precede, accompany and follow the actual Election,
IX. The Passion and Resurrection of Christ
The Third and the Fourth Week follow. In the Third Week we lovingly dwell on all the sorrowful scenes of our Lord’s Passion and Death, and in the Fourth we joyfully contemplate the various apparitions of the Risen Master.
These contemplations tend to transform the soul into Christ, to make it love what He loves according to the command of the Apostle: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. ii. 5). And thus through Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, the soul is brought back to God, its Creator and Lord. “But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (Cor. iii, 18).
X. The Final Triumph: transformation in divine love
The Exercises, which had begun with a choral ode or joyful overture, end with a hymn of triumph.
The end of man and of Christ’s redeeming work is man’s glorification by God’s transforming light and love. “When he shall appear, we shall be like to him because we shall see him as he is” (I John iii, 2). The process of glorification has already begun here on earth. Christ has purified and transformed the soul of the Exercitant by making the love of God the habitual spring of its actions. It can sing with the Divine Poet :
But now it was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally is moved,
The love which moves the sun and the other stars.(Paradiso, xxxiii, 142-5)
In Heaven, amare et gaudere will be the life of the soul. Here it is amare et servire. Both in Heavan and on earth, the soul’s happiness lies in perfect submission to God’s Will.
It is, however, only by divesting oneself of self-love, self-will, and self-interest, that this submission can be acquired Motification thus becomes the source of true and eternal life. “Amen amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, itself renaineth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John xii, 24-5).
XI. Its rules and practical guidance for the Spiritual Life
Here and there, all through the book, the Saint has laid down, clearly and briefly, rules and documents for the guidance of the Director that gives the Exercises, and of the soul that receives them.
The introductory Annotations and the Rules for the Discernment of Spirits give hints of the greatest importance for the direction of souls.
The General Confession, the General Examen, and especially the Particular Examen, are known to almost every soul that aims at perfection and have greatly influenced the spiritual life of the Church for the last four centuries.
The Additions have made possible a life of prayer in the midst of harassing work, and the Three Methods of Prayer have made this beautiful exercise accessible to all men of good will.
The Rules for the Distribution of Alms are the best guide for those whose mission is to work for others, whatever be their line of service.
The Rules on scruples have freed many souls from this pitiful disease, and the Rules for thinking with the Church prove, even nowadays, the best vademecum of a true Catholic.
The Nature and Object of the Spiritual Exercises
The ultimate object of the Spiritual Exercises is to destroy “self,” or better, to place the whole of man’s being in prefect conformity with God’s Holy Will. In this sense, everything that raises the soul to union with the infinite Goodness and Beauty, such as the contemplation of beautiful things, music and poetry, may be called a spiritual exercise.
The safest way to overcome our evil passions and consequently to bring ourselves into conformity with God’s Will is to fight against them. The vince te ipsum, i.e., a strong determination to fight against oneself, to go against one’s own inordinate inclinations and embrace what is hard and painful, is the best disposition for choosing and following God’s Will in everything. The Exercises are directed to implant this disposition in the soul.
St Ignatius compares Spiritual Exercises with bodily exercises to impress the fact that as in physical drill, so in that of the soul, the work is eminently personal. The Exercitant himself must play the game. The Director is only to give hints, to wait, and to watch. For many a reason, the present method of giving the Exercises departs not a little from this rule. Still the rule must always be kept in view. The Exercitant must not be satisfied with listening. He must make his own the matter presented to him, by thinking it over not only at the time of meditation, but also in his visits to the Blessed Sacrament and in his free time.
The immediate object of the Exercises is to choose one’s state of life or to reform oneself in the state already chosen. In the case of persons consecrated to God, the aim of the annual Retreat is the renewal of the spirit of fervour and of self-sacrifice, an increased love for their holy Vocation, and the resolution to live more in accordance with the rules and obligations of their state of life.
The resolve to uproot the soul’s evil affections and the discarding of false principles must first take place. Sins, passions, defects are destructive of the spirit, of fervour, and, more or less, undermine the stability of our life as Religious or Priests. We must know them, first of all, for many live without taking notice of them; and we must root them out, or, at least, be continually fighting against them. Unless this is done, it is of no use talking of fervour and of conformity with God’s Will.
The Will of God in our daily life is sufficiently manifest to us. It only remains for us to do it. A strong resolution to conquer ourselves and embrace what is hard, and an equally strong desire to love God more and more, and to do His Will in everything, must be the fruit which we reap from our daily meditation and practices of devotion.
From The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius—with a commentary by Aloysius Ambruzzi SJ, 1939, pp 1-10, 12-13.
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Iliad, xvii, 446.
Apoc. xii, 7, 8.
Wisd. xi, 17.