The Spiritual Exercises
Ignatius wanted to share with other people the fruits of his experience of God and made notes for himself to help him do this. Those notes grew into a small book of directions called The Spiritual Exercises. It was intended to help the person who directed another in a structured 30-day program of contemplation and prayer rather than for use by the person being directed.
Some of the major themes normally addressed in the four weeks or periods of the Exercises are:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3:
Week 4:
All Jesuits make the full 30-day Spiritual Exercises. Over the centuries the Jesuits have adapted the Exercises into shorter individually directed retreats of six to eight days and into conference or group retreats of a few days’ duration in which the director presents various themes of the Exercises to individuals or to a group of people, who pray on their own about the material presented.
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are usually experienced in one of these shorter adaptations, but occasionally people are moved by grace to give themselves to the full Spiritual Exercises either at a retreat house for the form of a silent 30-day retreat or at home in the form of The Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life (also called the 19th Annotation Retreat).