450+ years of tradition St. Ignatius founded the first Jesuit school in Messina, Italy in 1548. Jesuit education is the oldest tradition of secondary education in the world.
Updated: 2/20/2007
Jesuit Identity - Ignatian Spirituality
Understanding Ignatian Spirituality
The precepts and vision of Ignatian spirituality are the basis for Jesuit education and ministry all over the world. It is a spirituality rooted in humility, compassion, companionship, and the belief that everything in life is a gift from God.
The following topics provide introductory information on key aspects of Ignatian spirituality:
Ignatius of Loyola was still a layman when he wrote the defining document of Ignatian spirituality - The Spiritual Exercises. This simple text suggests a methodology for a retreatant to reflect on God's love and develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Ignatius taught this methodology to his first companions in the Society of Jesus. The relationship suggested by the exercises between the retreatant and the director became the model for the relationship between a student and a teacher in Jesuit schools.
The Examen of Consciousness was designed by Ignatius to be a daily call to prayer and reflection. It is both a call to penitence and an affirming reminder of God's unwavering love. Loyola Academy prays through the five steps of the Examen as a community each Tuesday at the start of homeroom:
God, I believe that at this moment I am in your presence and you are loving me.
God, you know my needs better than I know them. Give me your light and help as I review this day.
God, help me review the events of this day in order to recognize your blessings and my shortcomings.
God, I ask your forgiveness for my failings and I thank you for all your blessings.
As I look to the remainder of this day make me aware that you are with me, show me how to be the person you want me to be.
Conclude with the Our Father.
The First Principle and Foundation is perhaps the clearest distillation of Ignatian spirituality. It begins The Spiritual Exercises and defines what Ignatius sees as the purpose to life itself.
The goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God's life to flow into us without limit.
All the things in this world are gifts from God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God
insofar as they help us develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
they displace God and so hinder our growth toward our goal.
In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance
before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice
and are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
a deeper response to our life in God.
Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better
leads to the deepening of God's life in me.
- St. Ignatius as paraphrased by David l. Fleming, S.J. from the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises.
The Prayer for Generosity is a simple, beautiful prayer:
Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.
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