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The heart of the Spiritual Exercises is the love for the Blessed Humanity of Christ. Jesus is the Great King who calls us to His service for the salvation of sinners. Everything happens between two key prayers.
At the end of his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius invites us to ask God for the grace of love and contemplation. It is a call to grow in contemplating God Who is present in all things. It is contemplation in action.
Saint Ignatius exhorts the people in the retreat to use their imagination in order to stand inside the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
The second week of the Spiritual Exercises brings the typical Ignatian meditations: The Call of the King, the Two Standards, and the Three Types of Persons. They are stepping stones for the soul to face the planning of the future in God’s sight.
In the text of the Spiritual Exercises, we have “Annotations” and “Additions.” The key rule is that “it is not knowing much, but realizing and relishing things interiorly that contents and satisfy the soul”.
Discernment aims at giving a direction to the journey of the soul searching for God’s will. The doctrine of the discernment of spirits is a precious legacy of Ignatian spirituality.
The fruit of the first week of the Spiritual Exercises is named by Ignatius as Indifference. The meaning is not lack of interest but inner spiritual freedom.
Mapping the person’s progress in the individual journey to God is the purpose of the original way Saint Ignatius used the traditional spiritual tool: the Examination of Conscience.
The universal salvation history as it emerges from the Bible is fulfilled in each person’s discovery of God’s personal love expressed in his Law. This is Ignatius’ Principle and Foundation which makes us heed the Call of the King.
The book of the Spiritual Exercises is a manual for Directors who guide people in the exciting discovery of their true selves in the light of God’s will as it emerges in prayer during a desert period in which they choose to be alone with God.
