The Reformation · 1522–1524; published 1548

The Spiritual Exercises

Exercitia Spiritualia

Ignatius of Loyola · 1491–1556

Full text

What it is

Not a book to read but a thirty-day programme to be led through: structured meditations on sin, the life of Christ, the passion and the resurrection, with rules for telling which interior movements come from God.

Why it lasted

The engine of the Catholic Reformation and the source of Ignatian discernment — still the most widely practised retreat method in the world.

Scripture it works from

Luke Matthew

Read it here

The full text is held here and can be read in the reader.

English — The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, translated by Elder Mullan, 1914

91 sections · complete, from The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (CCEL transcription).

Elsewhere

The complete text is held here and can be read in the reader.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

From the text

APPROBATION OF THE LATIN TEXTS · English — The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, translated by Elder Mullan, 1914

The Exercises were offered for ecclesiastical censure at Rome. The text submitted was not, however, the one which is here reproduced, but two Latin translations, one in more polished Latin—since called the Vulgate Version—and one a literal rendering. The opinions expressed on these versions, as also the formal approval of Paul III, are given here, as applying quite entirely to the text from which the translations were made.

We have read everything compiled in the volume: it has greatly pleased us and seemed remarkably conducive to the salvation of souls.

The Cardinal of Burgos

We grant leave to print the work; it is worthy of all praise and very profitable to the Christian profession.

Philip, Vicar.

Such holy Exercises cannot but afford the greatest profit to any one who studies them. They should therefore be received with open arms.

Fr. Aegidius Foscararius,

Master of the Sacred Palace

We have read these Spiritual Exercises, They greatly please us and we judge them worthy of being received and highly esteemed by all who practise the orthodox faith.

The Cardinal of Burgos

We grant leave to print this work; it is worthy of all praise and very profitable to the Christian profession.