The First Spiritual Exercises

Four Guided Retreats
$19.95

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Format: Paperback

Publication date: April 8, 2013

Description

A radically innovative way to make the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, the classic retreat of Catholic spirituality, this creative and easy-to-use guide presents four retreats on inner peace that are, for the first time, accessible to anyone without getting away from ordinary life or meeting daily with a spiritual director.

For almost five hundred years, the Spiritual Exercises have been available only to priests and religious who could spend thirty days in silence under the guidance of a spiritual director. Now in The First Spiritual Exercises they are available as four retreats on inner peace to people in every stage of spiritual growth. Years of research and testing come together in Michael Hansen, S.J.’s, recreation of the way that St. Ignatius first gave the Exercises as he traveled with four companions, begging in bare feet and dressed in sackcloth.

Product Details

Pages: 384

Trim size: 6 x 9 inches

ISBN: 9781594713781

Imprint: Ave Maria Press

Videos
  • “One of the great books on Ignatian Spirituality.”

    “This is one of the great books on Ignatian Spirituality. It takes people from where Ignatius first found them, in their prayers and devotions, and quickly moves them into formal prayer. I have been using it for four years, and those to whom I have given it marvel at its power to move them into an intimate relationship with God. Michael Hansen is a born teacher, who enables people through the use of imagination to experience and reflect on their experience of God’s love and discover its dynamic in their own selves.”

    Des Purcell, S.J.
    Director of Canisius Centre of Ignatian Spirituality
    Sydney, Australia

  • “I highly recommend it.”

    “Jesuit Michael Hansen’s The First Spiritual Exercises captures in a helpful way Ignatius’s process of spiritual renewal and makes it an accessible and useful tool for deepening an intimate connection with God today. I highly recommend it.”

    Wilkie Au
    Author and Professor of Theological Studies
    Loyola Marymount University

  • “A clear, simple, and practical approach to developing your prayer life.”

    “If you are looking for a clear, simple, and practical approach to developing your prayer life in the Ignatian tradition, The First Spiritual Exercises is well worth procuring. One of Ignatius’s most radical and contentious insights was that the Creator engages directly with the heart of the creature. What I particularly like about the exercises in The First Spiritual Exercises is that they invite, stimulate, and give us freedom, if we dare, to dispose ourselves to experience such an encounter.”

    Brendan Kelly, S.J.
    Master of Jesuit Novices
    Australia

  • “A beautiful book and an important one as well.”

    “A beautiful book and an important one as well. Michael Hansen, S.J., an experienced Jesuit retreat director and a talented writer, recovers an often-overlooked way of praying with St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. But this is much more than a guide for a fulfilling personal retreat; it is also a compendium of inspiring meditations, useful insights, and practical advice for anyone who seeks a closer relationship with God. In these pages is a wealth of knowledge that I will surely be using in the future—both in counseling others and in my own prayer life.”

    James Martin, S.J.
    Author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

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Additional Resources

Webinar Download: How to Give an Ignatian Spiritual Exercise

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