St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Spiritual Exercises

Today, July 31st, is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits).

(Via Catholic Online.)

For our purposes here at Sober Catholic he is best known as the author of the “Spiritual Exercises”, a classic text on ridding yourself of character defects and sinful behavior through prayer, meditation, examination of conscience and the use of the Mass and the sacraments. When Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous wrote the Twelve Steps, it was remarked that they bore a striking similarity to St.Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises.

I shall be starting the Spiritual Exercise myself this weekend. There are various methods of doing this, I will be using the classic English translation published by Tan Books. It takes about 30 days to complete, but with allowances for the state of life one is in, and your progress, it’ll probably take longer.

I shall blog about the experience while doing them. The reason for that is that the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius should form the cornerstone of any program of recovery for a Catholic. The application of the Spiritual Exercises along with a good sacramental life may be all that one needs to maintain sobriety. Not having done these until now, and making them a part of this blog is long overdue.

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