What are the Ignatian Exercises? I cannot tell you. I can tell you some useful things about the Exercises, and I can tell you something of my own adventure in the Exercises, but no one can tell you what the Exercises would be like for you. The adventure of the Exercises is so different for each person that in a sense they are rewritten each time someone experiences them—the Creator uniquely and tenderly drawing each unique creature more deeply into His friendship. Whereas the text of the Exercises appears dry and lifeless, the experience of the Exercises is something so freeing that even the most winsome words fall far, far short of the reality. In the end, you simply have to taste and see for yourself.

The Exercises are . . . exercises. Ignatius even likens them to working out, trips to the gym. They are not theoretical. They are eminently practical exercises to be practiced in daily life, where the rubber meets the road. The process of going through the Exercises requires quite a large commitment of time—about an hour of quiet engagement each day and each week an hour-long meeting with a spiritual director. Usually this is a nine- to twelve-month process, though the timeframe varies. (I should mention that some people experience the Exercises in the context of a thirty-day retreat—something I have not yet experienced.)

As I experienced the Exercises “in daily life,” my eyes gradually were opened so that I could begin to see and face some of my “disordered attachments”—the ways in which I cling to things like possessions, people, and reputation so that I am not free to live and to love. Gradually, during the course of the Exercises, the grip of these attachments began to loosen. What a relief! This happened over time, through what is described as “a grace collaboration” with the One who longs for my freedom and wholeness far more than I ever could. Trevor Hudson, someone well-versed in the Exercises, likens it to a little bird being freed from the stare of a cobra, freed to sing and to soar:

“On a lonely road in the warm Indian countryside . . . I was pedaling gently on my bicycle . . . . [A]fter a good while I noticed a subtle change. A strange stillness. . . . I sensed danger in the wind. . . . Then suddenly I saw it. . . . A cobra, half-coiled, half-erect, with its hood spread out in majesty and its tongue flickering danger in the air. I followed its gaze, fixed on the branch of a bush slightly ahead and above. On the branch was a little bird paralyzed with fear. . . . The bird had wings, but could not fly. It had a voice, but could not sing. It was frozen, stiff, mesmerized. . . . I waved my arms and shouted. . . . The cobra . . . scurried away into the grass. . . . The bush came alive again. The bird woke. . . . It found its wings. And it flew.” Carlos Valles, SJ

During the course of the Exercises, I found myself changed. I was waking up, becoming more and more aware that God was (and is) creating me constantly, every moment of every day. I began to find my calling—not primarily my function in life, but who God is calling me to be. Life felt (and feels) more and more like adventure: how is He calling me to be, right here and right now? This awakening happened (and continues to happen) as I experienced an ever-deepening, even shocking, sense of being loved beyond my wildest imaginings. My own words fail here, so I conclude with some words of Robert Marsh, SJ:

“[A]s Jesus goes to the cross, what dies is not just a dream or a project. It is my Beloved. . . . I am mourning a man; a man I have come to love. At the start he was all abstraction and hope and activity; but by the end he is the man I have come to know intimately, I’ve watched his birth and held his warm weight; I’ve been there as he has grown up and been made man before me. I’ve seen his struggle and loved his laughter. I’ve gazed at him and found him gazing back; I’ve heard my name on his lips. I’ve been drawn into his friendship. I’ve watched him work, suffered his hardship, wrestled with his self-discovery. . . . [S]omething has happened. I have fallen in love.”

If you would like to talk about the Exercises, please contact me. It would be my pleasure to talk with you.