This book effectively brings the Exercises within reach of any disciple of Jesus ready to work with grace to turn life in the kingdom of the heavens with Jesus into their actual existence.
Dallas Willard, author of Renovation of the Heart
Content
This book is an adaptation of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, to help you to embark on a life-transforming journey toward Christlikeness. For nearly 500 years, the Exercises have been a tool for spiritual formation. During those years their popularity has ebbed and flowed, but they are now experiencing something of a revival across the breadth of the Church.
This is not a book about the methods or techniques of Christian formation but one that enables you to come before God through the Gospel narratives in order to encounter Jesus afresh. If you hunger for something deeper, yearn to walk with Jesus (not just read about him), and desire to embrace more of what God is doing in and through you, then this is the book for you.
Is this book for me?
Prayerfully and honestly work through the statements below, asking God to reveal to you if this book is the right spiritual formation vehicle for you at this time.
1. You have a strong desire to know Jesus more intimately, love Jesus more fully and follow Jesus more wholeheartedly.
2. You have a longing for a deeper, richer and more expansive relationship with God.
3. You desire to live with an internalised awareness that in God you live, move and have your being, and to find God in all things.
4. You have the desire, time (50-75 minutes a day, seven days a week for about nine months) and space in your life to engage fully in the Exercises.
5. You are willing to be open and honest with God, your spiritual director and yourself as you journey through these Exercises.
6. You are willing to follow Jesus during good times and difficult times.
7. You are open to having your theology and image of Jesus challenged and expanded.
8. You yearn to walk with Jesus through the Gospel narratives in a holistic and interactive way rather than merely read about Jesus.
9. You are willing to say 'no' to whatever holds you back from spiritual freedom.
10. You desire to enter into a spiritual practice that will help you better partner with what God is doing in you to conform you to the image of Christ.
11. You long for a vehicle that will help you to be more consistent and intentional in spending time with Jesus and connecting with God throughout the day.
12. You sense the gentle invitation of God to enter into the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola.
If there is a 'yes' that rises from deep within you as you read through the above list, or if you sense the quivering of excitement beginning to grow in your spirit as you consider the possibility of walking with Jesus through the Gospels, or if it is not so dramatic but simply a gentle knowing that this is for you, I strongly encourage you to embark on this journey.
If none of the above is the case, this may not be the right vehicle for you at this time. God works uniquely with each person, and the important thing is not that you are doing this or that, but that you are where God wants you. If this is not the right timing for you, please do not forget about the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, for there may very well be a time when these Exercises will be the exact vehicle for spiritual formation that God desires you to embrace.
View items in similar categoriesEndorsements
This book effectively brings the Exercises within reach of any disciple of Jesus ready to work with grace to turn life in the kingdom of the heavens with Jesus into their actual existence.
Dallas Willard, author of Renovation of the Heart
Larry Warner has retrieved a five-hundred-year-old spiritual practice and revealed its practical significance for Christians of the twenty-first century... To follow his wisdom and experience is to discover the transforming power of the life of Jesus.
Albert Haase, OFM, author of Coming Home to Your True Self
Reviews
From The Church Times - November 2011
In 1521, a worldly young Basque nobleman, Inigo de Loyola, participated in a battle against invading French forces at Pamplona in northern Spain. In the course of the fighting, Inigo's legs were shattered by a cannonball and he was carried from the battlefield, alive but helpless, and transported to his father's home.
There he spent the next nine months in slow convalescence. Pinned to his bed, frustrated and bored, Inigo called for some books of popular romance to while away the time, only to be presented with the Carthusian Ludolph of Saxony's Life of Christ and Voragine's Lives of the Saints. For sheer lack of anything more appealing to hand, he began to read, then to reflect, and, finally, to pray. Thus began the process of conversion by which this soldier-courtier was transformed into the man we now know as St Ignatius Loyola.
One enduring result of Ignatius's conversion was a book that he called the Spiritual Exercises. In it, he lays out a plan for a 30-day retreat based on his own path of spiritual discovery: a period of withdrawal and reflection spread over four weeks. Each day, the retreatant would meditate on some incident in the life of Christ, examine his or her fidelity to Christian values, and make a deeper commitment to God's service.
Above all, Ignatius conceived his Exercises as leading others, as they had him, towards making a life-choice. They would provide a catalyst for discerning God's will in every circumstance, and move people to follow that will wherever it might lead. Ultimately, they would open the heart to love.
In Discovering the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius by Larry Warner, Ignatius's text is re-presented in a modern format and with the needs of people today in mind. Warner himself is an experienced Ignatian retreat-giver, and there is a solidity and assurance to his presentation which inspires confidence.
As in the case of the original, this is not a book for armchair spiritual reading, but a manual for those who wish to incorporate the Exercises into their life. But Warner is merciful to those whose time is limited, and rich in suggestions for alternative modes of practice where necessary. Larry Warner is an Evangelical, founder of "b", with a particular interest in resourcing ministers and pastors. Into that slot his book might well be taken.
Sister Gillian is a Carmelite nun at Quidenham in Norfolk.
Book details
- ISBN: 9781841018836
- Published: 17 June 2011
- Status:
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 352
