A little additional information concerning the Spiritual Exercises:

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius are meant to allow you to take the time to nurture your inner life and to help you see your life more clearly so that you can learn to make the right choices. It’s an ideal time to get to know yourself better and let your deepest inner desires emerge in a prayerful context. The aim of this retreat is to assist you in choosing the path that will set you truly free and allow you to be more fully who you are in this world, in the truth of your deep inner self (discernment). This retreat is built on the premise that respect for personal freedom is a priority, one that cannot be ignored if you are to foster genuine growth in faith.

Though this experience is being offered to a small group of participants, it is first and foremost an individual process where you will dialogue with a spiritual director who will walk through each step of the process with you. During these daily meetings, you will be invited to talk briefly about what you are experiencing during the retreat: you will be able to share your questions, doubts, hopes and discoveries both with your spiritual director, and if you wish, with the other members of your small group.

This is not a preached retreat. Each day at 4pm, you will meet in the same small group to briefly share the fruit of your reflection and prayer. Afterwards, you will celebrate the Eucharist and, finally, pray on your own with suggested Bible readings and ‘spiritual exercises’ meant to fuel your prayer for the next 24 hours.  You will be encouraged to dedicate 3 or 4 periods a day to prayer based on the suggested texts.

The Exercises are therefore a faith journey, the main elements of which are prayer and silence which foster contact with what is deepest within yourself, and enable you to truly be in touch with your inner being … and with God.

Our spiritual approach to the Spiritual Exercises is fundamentally Christian and Catholic and is in firm conformity with the writings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola who devised them over four centuries ago. Respect for personal freedom was fundamental for him.

If, like Saint Ignatius, you are looking for a spiritual experience of and with God who is at the heart of your being, and if you feel called to embark on a spiritual journey that is authentically yours in following Christ, the Spiritual Exercises can undoubtedly help you find what you are seeking.