Inspiration Found In Guided Retreat of Jesuits' Founder

My most formative religious experience took place at age 23 within the framework of
the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This is a guided retreat of 30 days intended to help one understand how to discover God's will, and to be given the freedom to follow that will wherever it leads.

After a year and a half in the army at the end of World War II and three years of college upon returning home, I felt called to priesthood and decided to join the Jesuits in 1950.

As a Jesuit novice, I made the Spiritual Exercises during October 1950, thirty days of meditation and silent reflection guided by an experienced spiritual director. It was an introduction to religious life and a transformative experience for me.

The Spiritual Exercises open with a consideration of God's loving design for our world and our role in its achievement. We are then invited to an initial evaluation of our stewardship: our successes and failures in collaborating with God to realize his desires for us and our world.

For the most part, the Exercises are a series of meditations on select Scripture passages which the retreatant reads, ponders, and prays over, in order to be informed, impressed, moved, and affected by them. The aim is (a) to come to understand Christ's mission: what it is for and what it fights against ("to know him more clearly"), (b) to admire him ("to love him more dearly"), and to feel drawn to join with him in his struggle and to follow him on his mission ("to follow him more nearly"). These scriptural meditations move from Christ's birth and childhood, through his public ministry, to his passion, death, and resurrection. This is not just a chronology; there is, we discover, an unfolding pattern for living the Christian life.

I came to a better knowledge of myself and came to accept myself as a loved sinner, gaining a personal sense of positive affirmation from my Creator. I felt drawn to commit my life to the following of Christ and the service of others.

I repeated the month-long retreat 12 years later at the end of a long course of seminary studies and I make an abbreviated (eight days) retreat every year. This is indeed an ongoing formative experience. It depends on faith, of course, not least the faith that God will act within one's soul if one simply is willing to wait in silence and open the door.

By William J. Byron  |  January 4, 2007; 10:30 AM ET
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