Ignatian Spirituality
Ignatian spirituality: a taster.
Who is Ignatius: 16th century man who came to grief as a soldier. During his recovery, he became attentive to his interior movements discovering that he had the gifts to be able to discern what drew him towards love and grace and what pushed him towards self-aggrandisement and disgrace. Ignatian spirituality, in the form of spiritual exercises, is Ignatius’ legacy to women and men to help them grow in grace in their everyday lives.
What are the Spiritual Exercises?
A tool in which to grow in one’s relationship with God … Four seasons of prayer and spiritual companioning (spiritual direction) in which one learns how to live a discerning life in the company of the Spirit of God.
Who might pray the Exercises?
Anyone who seeks a loving and free relationship with God through Christ Jesus can pray the Exercises. However Ignatius said that the Exercises were not for everyone. He said that there are some people who for various reasons are not able to make the transition from intellectual knowledge of God to a more integrated knowledge of God involving both ‘head and heart’ (Kardia – seat of knowledge). Ignatius says: “For it is not in knowing much, but realizing and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul”[2],[1] which might be said more contemporarily like this:
Let your heart rise to meet your thoughts.
Savour harmony.[2]
It is hoped people want to make the transition from trying to live their faith through distorted images of God, to living faith with God as loving Creator and Companion. God as Creator and Companion is the image communicated through the book of life and through Christ Jesus in the gospels.
Elements of Ignatian spirituality
- God created us and continually creates us.
- God has self-revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. In praying the gospels, we come to ‘know, love and follow’ Jesus so that we might live the call of Christ to live and serve in co-discerning freedom.
- God is in all things – suffering as much as joy.
- One learns to live at balance before all things.
- Important is a spirituality which seeks to integrate body, mind, and spirit. All three dimensions come to play in discerning the movements which draw a person towards graced relationship with God and others. Imaginative gospel contemplation is a tool by which a person might experience Jesus in a more intimate and loving relationship. If a person can trust their imagination, it is also a tool of self awareness.
Contact Kardia for more information on the Spiritual Exercises
[1] David L Fleming, Draw Me into Your Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises, a Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading (Saint Louis, Missouri: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996).
[2] Marlene Marburg 2015.
