The Spiritual Exercises and the Return to Virtue 3
according to how God is working in the heart of that individual. It is not a handbook or a textbook that one can read, rather something a person must experience. The Exercises are an art form, not a science. The book was first printed in 1548. Ignatius made 500 copies and he kept all of them. He gave copies to people who had already made the Exercises so that they could direct others.
A Journal The Exercises are a journal of Ignatius’s own experience of God, a journal about God moving in his heart. Ignatius spent a year at Manresa after his conversion at Loyola. During that time, he experienced God purifying his dream and making clear that his call was to help souls. Ignatius was called to be an apostolic person, to be a person of the church, and to carry on the work of Jesus. The journal he kept during that year became the basis of the Spiritual Exercises. He refined his journal and adapted it over twenty-five years of directing others through the Exercises. This experience showed him what needed to be put in the book to help the director. But basically the book is the journal of his own conversion experience, a journal about God moving in his heart. As Ignatius talked to other people and led them through the Exercises, he discovered that his journey was really a paradigm of everyone’s journey, both the way God works with souls and the way people respond to God. He discovered that this was not just God dealing with him, but the way God dealt with everyone, even though in each case it was very personal and very individual. That is why the Exercises are adapted for each individual person. They are a paradigm, a model, and a pattern for God’s dealing with people.