LESSONS FROM IGNATIUS LOYOLA
Revised Edition

CONTENTS

Introduction

What Are the Spiritual Exercises?
Still on the Road to Damascus: Responding to God's Dreams for Us
Ignatian Noting
Ignatian Imagining
Ignatian Communicating
* Exercises of the Heart-1: The Principle and Foundation
* Exercises of the Heart-2: The Call of the King
* Exercises of the Heart-3: Contemplation on the Love of God
How Do We Live an Ignatian Spirituality? A Media God
How Do We Live an Ignatian Spirituality? Poor in Jesus
How Do We Live an Ignatian Spirituality? Direction and Ministry
Growing as a Contemplative in Action: Imagination and Contemplation
Growing as a Contemplative in Action: Contemplation and Discernment
Journeying with Ignatius the Pilgrim
Ignatian Ministry:Working with Jesus in the Vineyard
Ignatian Mission: One Who Is Sent
* Prayer and a Healthy Life
Ignatian Spirituality and Educating: Visions
Ignatian Spirituality and Educating: Values
Ignatian Spirituality and Educating: Strategies

* NEW CHAPTERS

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Ignatius Loyola, author of the Spiritual Exercises, once described himself as being taught by God as if he were a schoolboy. At the time he was thirty years old. His Exercises book is the result of the lessons he was taught by God.
In sharing these lessons with us, Ignatius enters us into a way of relating to God and to others and to our world that merits the identification of a spirituality that bears his name --- an Ignatian spirituality. There are a number of spiritualities in the Christian tradition, usually being passed down to us through the extraordinary graces given to an individual. We know of Benedict and the family of Benedictine spiritualities. We are familiar with Francis of Assisi and Franciscan spirituality. And we could name Teresa of Avila and Francis de Sales and many more. All Christian spiritualities find their center in Jesus, but how they experience, understand, and practically live out that relationship is what gives us the many spiritualities in the Christian tradition.

The short essays that make up this book are meant to give us a taste of Ignatian spirituality. Some repetition of
themes or topics --- typical of a lesson plan --- is deliberately reflected in these articles both in order to emphasize Ignatius's key elements and in order to make clear the harmony among these elements. Each article acts as a short lesson about our experience and our understanding of our relationship with Jesus in the Ignatian perspective. That relationship shapes our prayer, our choices, our ministries --- as Ignatius would say, "our whole way of proceeding."

The majority of the articles collected here were published over several years in the Jesuit Bulletin, a magazine of the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. The last three essays on Ignatian Spirituality and Educating are derived from a presentation made to faculty members at Saint Louis University in a 2003 symposium. Many of these articles also received publication in a differently edited form in Ignis, an Ignatian Spirituality quarterly, published in India.

As Jesus reminds us, our greatest glory is being his disciples. He will always be our Teacher. May the graces given to Ignatius Loyola be reflected for us in these lessons.

David L. Fleming SJ

PS. In this revised edition (2007), I have added some four essays that help to fill out Ignatius's "lesson plan."

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