The Christian Life Community in Australia has made giving and promoting the First Spiritual Exercises an apostolic work. For the last six years, the First Spiritual Exercises have been given in Australia and Malaysia, by Jesuit, religious and lay teams in parishes, spirituality centres and other groups.
The First Spiritual Exercises were known as the 18th Annotation Exercises. As a true form of the Spiritual Exercises these could almost be called “The Lost Spiritual Exercises” as its form and use died out for hundreds of years. The First Spiritual Exercises puts the Spiritual Exercises back in the hands of ordinary people. It democratizes the Exercises. No preparation, special requirements or education necessary, they can be made immediately by anyone, anywhere, many times over.
Fr Michael Hansen SJ’s book, “The First Spiritual Exercises”, will be published by Ave Maria Press in April 2013. He offers this explanation of the term.
What are the First Spiritual Exercises?
In the book of the Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius gave instructions to give the Exercises in two ways, the Full Exercises and the First Exercises. The Full Spiritual Exercises are given for 30 days in seclusion (20th Annotation) or 30 weeks in daily life (19th Annotation). The First Spiritual Exercises are given for four weeks in daily life.
What makes the latter, the 18th Annotation Exercises, the “First” Spiritual Exercises”? To begin with, they are first in the spiritual journey. They are the first spiritual exercises learnt by the pilgrim Ignatius seeking God’s will. They are the first spiritual exercises he gave to others. They are the first exercises I might give to anyone who desires to make progress in their spiritual life today.
Second, they are first in content. They contain many “first” exercises: the first principle of Christian freedom, first Christian prayers, first virtues, first morning thoughts, first creation, first sin, first methods of prayer, the first fruits of the Spirit, the first steps of discernment, and so on.
Third, they are first in the order and dynamic of the Exercises. One of the First Spiritual Exercises retreats includes all of the first week of the Full Spiritual Exercises. These and other first exercises must be made first before all the rest.
Fourth, they are first in use. They are the first form of the Spiritual Exercises retreat ever given. Unlike the Full Exercises, they can be given immediately to everyone. They are a complete form of the Spiritual Exercises in their own right. And in Ignatian spirituality, they are not only an excellent place to begin, they are the only place to begin!
The Full Spiritual Exercises, enclosed or in daily life, are made as one retreat. The First Spiritual Exercises are more flexible, they are made as one of four retreats, selected according to one’s need. Each retreat responds to the fundamental desire for inner peace and a particular desire for love, service, forgiveness, healing, freedom or divine friendship.
Each retreat guides me in daily prayer through four weeks, Monday to Thursday, and includes Sunday Eucharist and a weekend exercise. I will also learn up to six methods of prayer, be taught up to four Examen prayers and be introduced to the basic discernment of spirits. At the end, I will be invited to create a Program for Life for myself. All this happens in the flow of the retreat.
While the above elements are common to all four retreats, the desires, content and dynamic of each retreat are different.
- Inner Peace in Divine Love: built around a spiritual exercise in the Exercises called the “Contemplation to Attain Divine Love”. To begin a spiritual journey, it is well for me to feel unconditionally loved by God. Beginning with my own experience of love, I contemplate all the gifts I have received from God. This leads into movements of love, gratitude and service.
- Inner Peace in Darkness and Light: this is for those living in some form of darkness – a serious disorder in life, a long period of suffering, sinfulness, chronic illness or a driven lack of freedom. God comes to me in that darkness and gives me life there and/or leads me into the light. This retreat also awakens me to the God who lives in the light of my life, found in love, reconciliation, healing and freedom.
- Inner Peace in Friendship with Jesus: this deepens my friendship with Jesus. Ignatius often directs that prayer should end formally in conversation with Jesus as “if with a friend”. Indeed, he and his early companions named themselves “Friends in the Lord”.
- Inner Peace in the Service of God: offers exercises to find meaning and relish in my relationship with God, my faith, the Christian community and social service. It begins with profoundly beautiful ways of praying using breath and body. Deeper into the retreat, I pray the beatitudes, gifts of the Spirit and the works of mercy, and I conclude by creating a programme for active and faithful life.
The First Spiritual Exercises were intended from the beginning to serve three needs: to give me the retreat I desire now, to provide me with spiritual exercises I can use for the rest of my life, and to teach me the same, that I may teach others. This is very different to the Full Spiritual Exercises, which are usually made once in a lifetime for one purpose. Indeed, I may make the First Spiritual Exercises as many times as I wish.
How did Ignatius himself give the First Spiritual Exercises? Between 1526 and 1527, he gave them in Alcalá and Salamanca. Trying to live the actual life of an apostle, Ignatius made a strange sight in these sophisticated university cities, begging in bare feet and dressed in sackcloth. With four companions, he taught anyone who would listen about the love and service of God.
He gave the First Spiritual Exercises to a noblewoman and her daughter, to the baker and baker’s wife, to a hospital orderly, to university professors and students among others. Young or old, educated or illiterate, male or female, poor or rich – Ignatius saw the First Spiritual Exercises as being useful for everyone.
It was a source of wonder to the early Jesuits, on visiting Alcalá and Salamanca many years later, to find that many of these people who made the First Spiritual Exercises were still serving others when Ignatius was an old man. They remembered him very well because through the First Spiritual Exercises, they had been personally touched by God. They found their life story treasured and had been given a practical, realistic way to live and serve with God. All this struck deep roots in the lives of these first Ignatian exercisers.
How did Ignatius himself feel about the Spiritual Exercises? Nine years after being examined and freed from jail at Alcalá, he writes to a friend:
“Still, let me repeat once and twice and as many more times as I am able: I implore you, out of a desire to serve God Our Lord, to do what I have said to you up to now. May His Divine Majesty never ask me one day why I did not ask you as strongly as I possibly could!
The Spiritual Exercises are all the best that I have been able to think out, experience and understand in this life, both for helping somebody to make the most of themselves, as also for being able to bring advantage, help and profit to many others. So, even if you don’t feel the need for the first, you will see that they are much more helpful than you might have imagined for the second.”