The History of the Practice of the Spiritual Exercises

Catalog description

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola cannot be fully understood apart from the history of their practice. The published text of Spiritual Exercises is an indispensable guide to the giving the Exercises, but the meaning of the Spiritual Exercises is most fully expressed in the way they are lived by those who experience them. Jesuits have utilized the text of Spiritual Exercises in different ways at different points in the Society’s history, adapting to the contingencies of the eras through which the Society has lived. In this course, we will explore the practice of the Spiritual Exercises as it changed over the history of the Society. In this way, we will seek to understand both the internal dynamics of the Exercises and the way the practice of the Exercises has shaped, and been shaped by, the history of the Church and the Society.