Saint Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises
St. Ignatius, a man with a deep spiritual vocation
Íñigo López de Recalde was the son of a noble family. He was born in the hamlet of Loyola, between the small Basque villages of Azcoitia and Azpeitia, in 1491. At the age of 15 he entered the service of the kings of Castile, being a good diplomat and military. In May 1521, while defending the city of Pamplona, he was seriously injured in one leg. During his recovery, and compelled by some readings, he decided to make a radical change in his life and began a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for which he set out to embark at the port of Barcelona.
On the way there, he passed by the monastery of Montserrat and on March 25, 1522, he came down to Manresa where he lived eleven months, which were decisive in his spiritual transformation. The stay of Saint Ignatius at Manresa - much longer than anticipated - has a great relevance in the life and the works of the Saint. As he himself recounts, it was in this city where he had the mystical and spiritual experiences that inspired him in the writing of his main workExercicis Espirituals,a method of seeking the will of God, an aid to guide one's life according to God : "to love and to serve in all things."
Finally, he embarked in Barcelona and arrived in the Holy Land.
When he returned from Jerusalem, he decided to study first in Barcelona and then at Alcalá de Henares and Salamanca, until he was imprisoned by the Inquisition.
He then continued with his studies in Paris, where he was part of a group of ten companions who set out, within a year, to go to the Holy Land and become missionaries. And if that was not possible, they would put themselves under the Pope's orders. Once ordained priest, and faced with the impossibility of returning to Jerusalem, they placed themselves at the service of Pope Paul III. In 1540, he founded the Society of Jesus, and was chosen as its first superior. And so he continued until his death, in 1556, when he was 65 years old.
In 1609, Pope Paul V beatified him, and was proclaimed a Saint in 1622.
The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius
The Exercises: What are they?
All art has its own practices: music, painting, sports... It has also been said that the art of living and loving cannot develop without some self-knowledge or the exercise of certain attitudes. It is not, therefore, strange that there is also talk of Spiritual Exercising. Our spirit, in order to live in a healthy and full way, also needs to exercise: a detailed knowledge of oneself and a practical sense to grow as a person and as a person of solidarity. This applies to everyone who wants to grow humanly, whatever one's ideals or beleifs are.
The Spiritual Exercises that Saint Ignatius of Loyola wrote after many years of experience and reflection, are a pedagogy to grow in that human way of living that is inspired by Jesus of Nazareth and his Gospel.
They are neither courses nor speeches, but a practical pedagogy for the realization of a fully personal experience under the guidance of an expert person. There are different ways to realize this practice of the exercises:
- Individually
- In daily life, individually or in groups
- Five or eight days
- One month
- Contemplation
They are different modalities that will depend on the need and the moment lived by each person.
The Manresa Saint Ignatius Cave Center of Spirituality is the "founding place" for the practice of Spiritual Exercises: in the same place where Ignatius of Loyola lived the experience that would give rise to the Book of Exercises. To pray in the Cave, by the Cardener River, at the Basilica of la Seu, in the Hospital for the poor where the Pilgrim lived, in the Well of Light... an immersion in the Ignatian Manresa will facilitate "the feeling and tasting" that the Exercises propose.