The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are ways in which one can open up to the promptings of the Spirit of God. The Spiritual Exercises are born from Ignatius’s personal experience of God and through them, he was able to find his deepest personal desires in God. Over the centuries the Spiritual Exercises have played an instrumental role in people’s lives (Christians and non-Christians). The Spiritual Exercises were developed many years, but they are still of great relevance to our time.
I feel they are a way to God as they bring about freedom in our lives and our desires to follow God and discover what he wills for our lives. I think in all our various apostolates we should make sure that we lead or invite people to have an encounter with God which brings about change in their lives so that we will be able to pay close attention to what God is calling them to like what He did with St. Ignatius.
Through paying attention to what God is calling us to, we will be able to grow in faith and freedom to love and follow God more sincerely and maturely as a child of God. Therefore, the Spiritual Exercises are an important tool in our desire to know God, for they bring about self-awareness, Self-giving, self-sacrifice and Understanding