FINDING GOD IN YOUR DAILY LIFE

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola

The Spiritual Exercises were written by St. Ignatius Loyola over a period of about 25 years. He organized them out of his own personal experience that of others to whom he listened. They are an organized series of methods or activities designed to help us become more and more aware of our ever-present God. As a result of this awareness, we hope to discover and live out God's hopes for us.

The Spiritual Exercises are based on four assumptions:

   1. God creates the universe precisely in order to invite us into relationship with Him.
      a. God is always communicating to us who God is.
      b. God desires us and works to draw us into a reciprocal conscious relationship with Him.

   2. We are called to respond to God's self-communication, but we are not always alert to the presence of God in our lives.
      a. The Spiritual Exercises heighten our awareness of God's presence.

   3. The most important prerequisite for using the Exercises is a desire to become more aware of the presence of God in our lives and to develop a conscious relationship with Him.
      a. No advanced spiritual life is necessary for doing Exercises.

   4. Another prerequisite for using the Exercises is the ability to notice and talk about what happens interiorly while we are doing them.
      a. Noticing and talking with others while helps us to become more aware of God's movement in our lives.

 - - - Taken from "Finding God in All Things" by William A. Barry, S.J.