Spiritual Exercises

The religious order of the Jesuits (or Society of Jesus) is above all represented by the founder St Ignatius and his close friend and famous missionary St Francis Xavier. At the heart of their enterprise, from the time of its beginning in the first half of the sixteenth century, stand the Spiritual Exercises as composed by the former on the basis of his mystical experiences in the Cave of Manresa in Spain. These Exercises propose a way of meditating on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of translating it into contemporary terms, enabling the exercitant to know him more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him more nearly in his life, death and resurrection.