The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Explained

Not a book to be read. A method to be given.

That single fact unlocks the Spiritual Exercises, and almost nobody is told it. Ignatius wrote for the person directing a retreat, not for the person making one, and least of all for someone reading at home. Which is why reading it straight through feels like reading somebody else's instructions because that is exactly what it is.

Its structure is also the most intricate of the five: twenty annotations, four weeks, additions, notes, three methods of prayer, fifty-one mysteries, and five separate sets of rules.

This edition makes the design visible and the rules consultable.

The complete translation of Father Elder Mullan, S.J., made from Ignatius's own autograph, stands unaltered. Beside it, 154 explanations that say what belongs to the director, what to the person making the Exercises, and what a reader outside a retreat can profitably do.