Try An Ignatian Retreat

If you are seeking spiritual calmness though a structured and coordinated means, an ignatian retreat is without doubt the medicine that will cure you.

Based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, it is the means by which to reach spiritual health, wealth and tranquility. There are numerous camps right across the USA that offer the ignatian retreat and the advantages of doing so are endless.

As you may know, St. Ignatius himself believed in the need for spiritual exercise for the need of understanding oneself and our desires. As a soldier himself wounded in 1521 during a battle, St. Ignatius contemplated upon the importance of analyzing the desires that he held in his life and where they derived from. Some, he reflected, were from his own selfish worldly desires, while others came from a holier plain. He found to his own delusion, that most were from his own worldly desires, and that overcoming these could be done through the completion of spiritual exercises much as he had done during his convalescence.

He therefore abandoned his life as a soldier and instead dedicated himself to the work of God. He created his own spiritual handbook between the years of 1522-1524 and they have existed and been used by Jesuits in this spiritual retreats for centuries since.

His main ideas were defined in these named retreats that could be taken over a 30 day period, over which specific goals were reached over the four week period. He started by proclaiming the Principle and Foundation, which stated that humans exist solely for the glory of God and should reflect on their love for Him. Our own personal balance is key to not displacing the gifts He has put before us.

The four weeks are broken down a follows:
Week 1 consists primarily of the concept to ‘reform the deformed’. That is, to reform ourselves from our misshapen failures that we have been for His creation. Understanding and coming to terms with the failure of mankind to inadequately respond to God’s unconditional love is what the first week concentrates upon.

Week 2 is to ‘conform the reformed’. To move on and understand the life of Jesus so that we may unconditionally accept the love that his life created.

Week 3 is to ‘confirm the conformed’ . This week progresses to look at the Passion and the continued works during Jesus’s life. The aim is to deeper understand his suffering and through this path deepen our commitment to him.

Week 4 is to ‘transform the confirmed’. Through the previous three weeks of study, the individual will then be prepared to study fully the culmination of the work of Jesus and understand and appreciate fully the joy of the Resurrection and fully commit to the mission of the continued work of Jesus.

Much of the ignatian retreat is concentrated upon advanced meditation and prayers. These are all designed to help the meditator see the grace of God that fills their everyday lives.

The ignatian retreats understand that not all people in today’s society can so easily commit thirty days to such a retreat in the manner that the purist followers of St. Ignatius might be able to do. That is why they are also offered in shorter retreats that concentrate on the daily Examen – a process designed to reflect everyday on the grace that God brings to our lives and the way in which we respond to it. The daily Examen is also based around the spiritual exercises.