The eighth: If he who is giving the Exercises sees that he who is receiving them is in need of instruction about the desolations and wiles of the enemy - and the same of consolations - he may explain to him, as far as he needs them, the Rules of the First and Second Weeks for recognising different spirits. The seventh: If he who is giving the Exercises sees that he who is receiving them is in desolation and tempted, let him not be hard or dissatisfied with him, but gentle and indulgent, giving him courage and strength for the future, and laying bare to him the wiles of the enemy of human nature, and getting him to prepare and dispose himself for the consolation coming.Įighth Annotation. Let him ask in detail about each of these things.Ĭonsolation and desolation are spoken of on p. So too of the Additions, whether he observes them with diligence. The sixth: When he who is giving the Exercises sees that no spiritual movements, such as consolations or desolations, come to the soul of him who is exercising himself, and that he is not moved by different spirits, he ought to inquire carefully of him about the Exercises, whether he does them at their appointed times, and how.

The fifth: It is very helpful to him who is receiving the Exercises to enter into them with great courage and generosity towards his Creator and Lord, offering 2 Him all his will and liberty, that His Divine Majesty may make use of his person and of all he has according 3 to His most Holy Will. However, the Exercises will be finished in thirty days, a little more or less.įifth Annotation. The same is true of all the other subsequent Weeks, seeking out the things according to the subject matter. For, as it happens that in the First Week some are slower to find what they seek - namely, contrition, sorrow and tears for their sins - and in the same way some are more diligent than others, and more acted on or tried by different spirits it is necessary sometimes to shorten the Week, and at other times to lengthen it. Though four weeks, to correspond to this division, are spent in the Exercises, it is not to be understood that each Week has, of necessity, seven or eight days. Second, the life of Christ our Lord up to Palm Sunday inclusively įourth, the Resurrection and Ascension, with the three Methods of Prayer. The fourth: The following Exercises are divided into four parts:įirst, the consideration and contemplation on the sins The third: As in all the following Spiritual Exercises, we use acts of the intellect in reasoning, and acts of the will in movements of the feelings: let us remark that, in the acts of the will, when we are speaking vocally or mentally with God our Lord, or with His Saints, greater reverence is required on our part than when we are using the intellect in understanding.įourth Annotation. For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul. For, if the person who is making the Contemplation, takes the true groundwork of the narrative, and, discussing and considering for himself, finds something which makes the events a little clearer or brings them a little more home to him - whether this comes through his own reasoning, or because his intellect is enlightened by the Divine power - he will get more spiritual relish and fruit, than if he who is giving the Exercises had much explained and amplified the meaning of the events.

1 The second is that the person who gives to another the way and order in which to meditate or contemplate, ought to relate faithfully the events of such Contemplation or Meditation, going over the Points with only a short or summary development.

For as strolling, walking and running are bodily exercises, so every way of preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all the disordered tendencies, and, after it is rid, to seek and find the Divine Will as to the management of one’s life for the salvation of the soul, is called a Spiritual Exercise. The first Annotation is that by this name of Spiritual Exercises is meant every way of examining one’s conscience, of meditating, of contemplating, of praying vocally and mentally, and of performing other spiritual actions, as will be said later. TO GIVE SOME UNDERSTANDING OF THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES WHICH FOLLOW, AND TO ENABLE HIM WHO IS TO GIVE AND HIM WHO IS TO RECEIVE THEM TO HELP THEMSELVESįirst Annotation. Translated from the Autograph, By Father Elder Mullan, S.J. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

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