St. Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises and Their Contribution to Modern Introspective Subjectivity

The author discusses St. Ignatius of Toy ola 's Spiritual Exercises in their sixteenth-century context. He argues that Ignatius introduced a number of technical changes to the late medieval tradition of undertaking spiritual exercises and that these changes were of utmost importance. Thy widened significantly the practitioner's control over his or her spiritual growth and the access of the laity to spiritual exercises and introspective techniques. But due to this "democratizing impulse," thy also ignited fear among conservative theologians, who recognised (accurately) the resemblances between Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises and Alumbradismo. This led to a dramatic curtailment of the Exercises' "democratic" potential in the last years of the sixteenth century.Keywords: Ignatius of Loyola, Saint; introspection; Spiritual Exercises; lay spirituality; modern subjectivityThe tradition of spiritual exercises, of taking care of one's self ipsius) by means of either intellectual or spiritual self-improvement, is older than the Church itself. As has been established, there was also very little in the content of the specific exercises and meditations included in Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises (compiled in the 1520s and 1530s, first printed edition in 1548) that was new or original. Loyola's Exercises were shaped to a very large degree by Ludolf of Saxony's Vita Christi (written before 1378, with many printed editions since 1474), which promoted the notion that activation of the imagination by means of meditative prayer intensifies the affective life of the soul and enhanced self-examination, as well as by Thomas a Kempis's Imitatio Christi (? -.1420) and other writings by followers of the Devotio Moderna. Loyola was also influenced by his reading of Abbot Garcia Jimenez de Cisneros's Ejercitatorio de la vida espiritual (c. 1500) or, more likely, an abbreviated version of this collection, the Compendio breve de ejercicios espirituales (1520, but only surviving in its 1555 edition). Cisneros's exercises themselves were shaped by Modern Devotion exercises and by Desiderius Erasmus's Enchiridion militis Christiani} Both the vocabulary and order of Loyola's Exercises follow Cisneros's texts closely, whereas Loyola himself credited the Imitation of Christ with igniting his conversion.2 He even assigned the Imitation of Christ as mandatory reading for Jesuit novices, who were required to carry the text with them at all times. For Loyola, then, there was no contradiction or even tension between the monastic/spiritual and the apostolic/ministerial missions of the Jesuits-a point worth emphasizing because of later developments that will be discussed in due course.The content of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises could therefore be regarded as nothing but a compilation of pre-existing meditations for self-cultivation and self-actualization as a devout Christian, or, to use Ignatius's own vocabulary: "to overcome oneself" [21] and "finding more readily what one desires" [73]. 3 As such, they could be read as one element in a much wider attempt, carried out in early-modern Europe by state and church together, to impose new norms of self-control and self-discipline, a process advanced and analyzed by, among others, Norbert Elias, Michel Foucault, Wolfgang Reinhard, and Adriano Prosperi (further discussed below). But this view, although literally accurate in the sense that Loyola's goal is to enhance adherence to the Church, ignores three significant modifications introduced by Loyola into the ancient and late-medieval practices of spiritual exercises-modifications that had important psychological, pedagogical, spiritual, and sociocultural implications. These changes-namely, a transition from reading exercises alone to listening to them as they are being read aloud; the central role of a spiritual director as a mediator between text and practitioner; and the availability of spiritual exercises of introspection and spiritual growth to all believers, regardless of their societal status-are the topics for this article. …