The Spiritual Exercises

Abstract

Pierre Favre (1506-46) was the first of Ignatius' companions to have stayed with him, and hence the second Jesuit. After the Society was founded in 1540, he was sent on mission to Germany, and in 1542 he began to keep a spiritual journal. He begins by recalling the events of his life, and notably his encounter with Ignatius in Paris. Though Pierre helped Ignatius with his studies, the roles of master and pupil were soon reversed: “As time passed he became my master in spiritual things and gave me a method of raising myself to a knowledge of the divine will and of myself. In the end we became one in desire and will and one in a firm resolve to take up that life we lead today - we, the present or future members of this Society of which I am unworthy.” This quotation expresses two important truths about the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. First, the common life of the Society of Jesus is closely connected to the experience of the Exercises. Favre and the other Jesuit companions share a “firm resolve to take up that life we lead today” - a resolve that proceeds from the goal of the Exercises: “a knowledge of the divine will and of myself.” For Ignatius, both the Exercises and the Society were key means through which he realized his life-project of “the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine.” Jesuits became Jesuits through the Exercises - “most of the good people who are today in the Society have left the world to come to it by using this way.” Conversely, the Exercises were seen, right from the beginning, as the Society's own characteristic ministry - “among the means which our Society uses, this one is very proper to her, and God has used it in large measure among countless souls.”

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