Some Directions That Will Help Us to Profit More by These Exercises

ape make better profit of the Spiritual Exercises and gather from them the fruit that we have said, it is to be observed, first, that, as we have said above, when a man sets about meditation, not only should he have arranged beforehand the points that he is to meditate on, but also the fruit that he is to gather therefrom. So, also, on being about to make the Exercises, a man must bring prepared in detail what he is to gather from them. Before going into retreat he must look and consider with himself very leisurely and attentively: “What is the greatest spiritual necessity that Ihave?” “What is that to which my vicious nature or my passions or my evil habits most incline me?” “What is it that makes war on my soul?” “What is there in me that may offend and disedify my brothers?” And this is what he must keep before his eyes to get from the Exercises and to resolve effectually to amend. This is a very good preparation for entering on the Exercises. And it must be observed that, when one goes into retreat, one should not fix one’s eyes on the attainment of a very high prayer, nor think that by shutting himself up in retreat he is to have at once easy access to God with much quiet and attention; for it may be that he will have more distractions, more disturbances and temptations, than he had in his offices and ministries; but he must put before his eyes the gaining of what we have said, and make a resolution thereon in all earnestness. That gained, he will make a good retreat, though he may not have the devotion that he desired; and if that is not gained, though from the beginning to the end he melted in tears and devotion, he will not have made a good retreat, for that is not the end of retreat, but the other.

That direction also will be a great help which our Father gives us and wishes us always to observe in meditation; that as soon as the hour of meditation is over, the exercitant, for the space of a quarter of an hour or thereabouts, sitting or walking up and down, should make an examination of his meditation and take account how he has succeeded in it; and if it has gone badly, let him look into the cause thereof; let him look and see whether he had the exercise well prepared beforehand, whether he gave way to strange and irrelevant thoughts, whether he let himself be overcome by sleep, whether he dwelt excessively in speculation of the understanding, whether his heart was languid and remiss at meditation, whether he took no pains to exercise affections of the will, whether his intention was not as pure as it should have been, seeking rather consolation than the divine will. And if he finds he has been at fault, let him repent thereof and purpose amendment henceforth; but if he finds that the thing has gone well, let him return thanks to God our Lord and contrive to do things in the same manner in the remaining meditations.

This instruction is of great importance because, in the first place, by means of this examination and reflection on how one has got on at meditation, a person gains experience how things go badly and how they go well, to avoid the one and follow the other; thus spiritual discernment is acquired, and that mastery of the subject that springs from experimental knowledge. On this account our Father set much store by this examination and reflection as a means to make us masters, not only in this, but also in our other exercises and ministries. So he says in the Fourth Part of his Constitutions that it will be a great help to a confessor to do his office well if, after he has heard a confession, he makes reflection to see and consider if he has committed any fault in that confession, especially if he is a beginner, to correct himself another time and by dint of blundering learn to hit well. For this end, also, is made the examination of meditation. Meditation is so valuable, and it so much behooves us to get into the way of making it well, and steadily to banish the faults that we commit in it, that our Father, not content with the examen that we are wont to make every day at noon and night, would have us examine our meditation on the spot immediately after concluding it.

The second thing that we have to do in this examination of our meditation, and a very important thing, must be to see what was the fruit that we have drawn therefrom and apply ourselves to drive it home anew, as when people repeat a lecture and draw out in black and white its conclusions and truths and make a sort of epitome of them. So much account must be made of this examination that, when one cannot find time to make it after the meditation, it should be made in the meditation itself at the end of it.

We may add here another point, which is this, that it will be a good plan for a man to note down what he gathers from the meditation, putting in writing, not at length, but briefly, the desires and purposes that he draws from it and also some truths and illustrations or discoveries of error which the Lord is wont to give therein, sometimes concerning certain virtues, sometimes concerning the mysteries meditated. Such we read to have been the practice of our first Fathers, our blessed Father Ignatius and Father Peter Faber, and we have some things of theirs that they wrote thereon. Father Francis Xavier also was accustomed to do the same, as we read in his Life; and in the Directory to the Exercises this advice is also given. Also our Father General Claudius Aquaviva recommends it to us in the “Industriae” that he wrote, treating of meditation. And besides the fact that thereby our purposes and desires are brought more to a head, we find by experience how profitable it is for a man to read these things long afterwards; for, being his own, and he having felt them as they stand, they make more impression on him than other things, and he readily comes to appreciate them again; and seeing that since that time he no longer comes up to that point he had then attained and instead of advancing is going back, he is ashamed at no longer being what he once was. Thus either he is animated to go back to the old standard of perfection or at least to make up by shame for his falling short of perfection. So this practice will always be profitable, particularly at the time of the Exercises.

Lastly, I say that if ever there is a time when it is good to give an account of one’s conscience and of one’s prayer to some spiritual man, as we shall say afterwards, it will be at this time particularly; and for not humbling themselves to this some do not gather the fruit that they should gather from the Exercises.