Introductory notes for readers of this thesis - Theses - Flinders ...

opened…he understood and knew many things, both spiritual things and mattersof faith and of learning, and this was with so great an enlightenment thateverything seemed new to him. This was such that in the whole course of his life,through sixty-two years, even if he gathered up all the many things he had hadfrom God and all the many things he knew and added them together, he does notthink they would amount to as much as he received at that one time 15 .During his time at Manresa Iñigo wrote down everything that was helpful to him in hisown spiritual journey in the belief that it might be helpful to others also. These notes werecarried with him, continually being added to and refined, on his subsequent journeys overthe next 15 years—including a successful pilgrimage to the Holy Land and theological16studies in Paris . They became the basis for his Spiritual Exercises, a method ofdirection through which Iñigo was to lead others into a similar descent into transcendenceleading to a life-changing experience of devotion and calling. In practice, the spiritualityof Ignatius, as shaped by his Exercises, is a spirituality of deep silence and reflectionleading to a lifestyle of active contemplation and a seeking of God in all things in thecontext of the everyday and ordinary. Through these Exercises the pilgrimage of Iñigo(who became Ignatius) opened the door to spiritual encounter and adventure for countlessmillions—including the German spiritual theologian, Karl Rahner, who became anarticulate advocate of the benefit of Ignatian spirituality for modern women and men.Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian spiritualityThe Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius are a guide to a process through which each Christianpilgrim can become present to God in Christ in a deeply personal way.The Exercises do not reveal their secrets except to one experiencing themeditations, just as the Scriptures do not disclose their profound meaning exceptto … [people] of deep, interior spirituality…If we give them [the Exercises] amerely cursory reading, they appear to be a catalogue of pious, moral instructionsand do not make a very strong impression upon us, but when we really makethem, they exercise a tremendous power and influence upon the internalconversion of our souls and their growth in the spiritual life. Experienceabundantly testifies to this fact 17 .15 Olin, ed. The Autobiography St. Ignatius of Loyola, 39-40.16 Imhof, Ignatius of Loyola , 51-52; Gleason, The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius , 13-16.17 ‘An anonymous Jesuit’ cited in Hugo Rahner, The Spirituality of St.Ignatius Loyola (Westminster,Maryland: The Newman Press, 1953), 91.33