contemplative Orders some instructions on penance, mortification, reparation, and intercession, and of course in both cases alike some instructions on the method of prayer suitable to each.

NOTE B

ON THE PRINCIPLE AND FOUNDATION

In determining the scope and meaning of this Exercise the first thing to bear in mind is that S. Ignatius is giving us the Principle and Foundation of a whole body of Spiritual Exercises which are designed and intended to lead a man on to the highest degree of perfection of which he is capable. Therefore we must not seek for the full meaning of this Foundation, and especially of the first sentence of it, in any of those numerous adaptations which are from time to time issued from the press as retreats according to the method of the Exercises. Its full scope and meaning must be sought in the text of S. Ignatius himself, interpreted in the light of the consequences he has deduced from it; bearing in mind also the kind of persons for whom the Exercises are primarily designed.1

The Foundation, and especially the first proposition which it lays down concerning the end of man, may indeed be addressed to any man, Christian or non-Christian, Catholic or heretic; for it declares truths which should appeal to man simply as man, on grounds of reason and natural religion, quite apart from revelation and faith. And at times it may be useful to treat it in this way even in the case of Christians. For if they are convinced of its truth and importance on mere grounds of reason, how much more will they be so when the teachings of revelation and faith are afterwards added! But this is not the primary intention of S. Ignatius. His Exercises are Spiritual Exercises. They are addressed to those who are in the spiritual and supernatural order. The retreatants he has primarily in view are Christians and Catholics, not indeed always in a state of grace, but at least wishing to return to God in penitence; and he wishes to order their lives with a view to a supernatural end, viz. the love and service of God in the state of grace in this world, and the enjoyment of eternal life and beatitude in the world to come. Nor

1 See Collection de la Bibliothèque des Exercices de Saint Ignace, No. 9, La Méditation Fondamentale, by H. Watrigant, S.J., pp. 2-11, to which I am indebted for several remarks in this Note.

is this all. It is not even every Christian whom he considers fit to make the Exercises in their full and complete form; but only those who desire to profit by them to the utmost, and also have sufficient capacity and strength of character to reap the full fruit from them. That is to say, he has composed and ordered his Exercises not primarily for those who merely want to live an ordinary Christian life, maintaining themselves in a state of grace, and saving their souls in the sense of not losing them; but for those who desire to make notable progress in a spiritual life, and are prepared to give to God whatever He may ask of them. It is strong and generous souls such as these, however much they may be at present entangled in sin and worldly ambitions, that he has primarily in view. These alone are fit to make the Exercises in their integrity. To others who are more or less lacking in these requirements, only some portions of them are to be given, in many cases only the Exercises of the First Week, and even these will have to be modified and adapted to suit the needs and capacities of those who are to receive them. (See Annotations xviii-xx, and Additional Note A.)

Addressing himself, then, in the first place to ardent and generous souls, S. Ignatius places man's end in the praise and glory of God.1 If he had said that man was created to enjoy God he would have said what is perfectly true, and what he has indeed implied, as we shall presently see, in speaking of the salvation of the soul. But as he is enunciating the first principle of the loftiest spiritual life, and laying the foundation for the practice of the very highest perfection, he has preferred to put in the forefront the motive of the glory of God, which S. Bonaventure calls finis principalior. This is the ideal point of view according to which a man's life and actions ought to be directed; but at the same time S. Ignatius does not forget that in practice other motives, and definite acts of the religious and moral virtues, will be needed, and therefore he goes on to speak of the reverence and service which we owe to God, and of the salvation of the soul in which that reverence and service will find their eternal reward.

Yet here again in speaking of the salvation of the soul it is evident that he means very much more than merely escaping damnation. He includes in his thought every degree of perfection, up to the very highest, to which God may call a soul in this life and the next. Unless this were so the Foundation

1 See Note 2, p. 28; and Note 1, p. 34.

would not be adequate to the superstructure which he builds upon it. For the truths here enunciated underlie and support the whole body of the Exercises: not merely those of the First Week, which belong to the purgative way, but those also of the subsequent Weeks, which are designed to lead a soul onward through the illuminative and unitive ways to the highest degree of perfection of which it is capable. When, therefore, he goes on to say that a man ought to make use of creatures just so far as they help him to attain his end, and to withdraw himself from them just so far as they hinder him (tanto-quanto), he is not speaking merely of such things as are commanded or forbidden under pain of mortal sin, but of such a use of creatures or withdrawal from them as shall best promote that measure of spiritual perfection to which God may call each one, whether as a layman, a priest, or a Religious. And because such a use of creatures or withdrawal from them is possible only to a thoroughly mortified and disciplined soul, he adds immediately: It is therefore necessary that we should make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in all that is left to the liberty of our free-will, and is not forbidden; not merely, be it observed, to things which plainly involve sin, for these of course we are bound to withdraw ourselves from and to reject, with all the force of our will, but to all created things, including those which are lawful and left to our own choice. For unless we make ourselves indifferent even to lawful things, we shall be in danger of having an inordinate affection for them, and of desiring and choosing them when perhaps they are not God's will for us, nor conducive to His glory and our own advancement in the way of perfection. And then, as if to show that this indifference, on which he lays so much stress, is not mere apathy or insensibility, he adds at the end words which prepare the way for those greater offerings of love and devotion which we shall be invited to make in the meditations on the Kingdom of Christ and the Two Standards, and in the third Mode of Humility, which is the highest point of perfection to which the Exercises carry us: desiring and choosing only that which leads us more directly (más nos conduce) to the end for which we were created.

Language such as this would be wholly out of place if S. Ignatius had been speaking only of what is required in order to save one's soul, in the sense of escaping damnation. It goes very far beyond such a conception of our end as that. In insist

ing upon a perfect indifference to all created things, even things lawful in themselves, and in enjoining us, even among these, to desire and choose only that which may lead us more directly to the end for which we were created, it looks forward to and lays the foundation for that closer following of our Lord in the way of perfection, to which the whole course of the Exercises is intended to lead us on.

Such is the full scope and meaning of this Foundation Exercise. In practice, however, we must be content to adapt our teaching to the capacities and dispositions of those to whom we give the Exercises. In the case of those who are not going beyond the First Week, because they desire only to be instructed and helped to arrive at a certain degree of contentment of soul, or because they are simple and illiterate persons, or wanting in depth of character, or of little natural capacity, so that not much fruit can be expected of them (Annotation xviii), it would be out of place to speak of this entire mortification of all inordinate affections, and perfect indifference even in things lawful, which S. Ignatius requires as the necessary foundation for the Exercises of the following Weeks, with their call to the closest following of our Lord in the spirit, and, if He should invite us thereto, in the actual practice of the evangelical counsels. These deeper teachings are reserved for those who desire to profit to the utmost (Annotation xx), and to whom therefore the complete course of the Exercises may be given. For others a simple consideration of the end of man and of creatures, with a view to avoiding sin, and persevering in the state of grace, will generally be sufficient.

It is for this reason that S. Ignatius wishes that the Exercises should be given by an experienced director, in order that he may adapt and accommodate them to the intellectual capacity and the moral and spiritual needs and dispositions of those who are to make them.

NOTE C

ON THE EXERCISE OF THE THREE POWERS OF THE SOUL

In the first meditation on sin S. Ignatius shows at some length how these powers are to be exercised in each of the three points. To the memory he ascribes a twofold operation; first, a simple

calling to mind of the fact: to bring, he says, to memory the sin of the angels, and then a fuller and more detailed remembrance and quasi-consideration, i.e. a remembrance which involves some exercise of the understanding also, viz. how they were created in grace, yet not willing to help themselves by means of their liberty to reverence and obey their Creator and Lord, they fell into pride, were changed from grace into malice, and cast down from heaven to hell. (See the first point.) All this S. Ignatius assigns to the memory, i.e. to the mind dealing with past events, partly by means of the memory proper and partly by means of the understanding working upon them. Thus we see that the exercise of the memory and of the understanding are not separated by any hard and fast line. They go together, and melt into one another. To the understanding he assigns only one act, viz. to reason and make deductions and then in turn to reason more in particular with the understanding. This reasoning, however, is not to be merely an exercise of the speculative intellect, but should always have a practical end in view. We must not be content with the mere intellectual penetration and development of the truth upon which we meditate. We must draw practical conclusions and apply them to ourselves. To the will S. Ignatius assigns two operations; one is the concentration of our other faculties upon the subject of our meditation, and then the will, desiring to remember and understand the whole; the other is the movement and exercise of our affections, and thus in turn to move still more the affections by means of the will. But here again the affections are not to be moved for their own sake. Their exercise is indeed a most valuable part of our meditation, for it is in this that the fruit of prayer largely consists; but S. Ignatius always has a further end in view, and leads us on, especially in the colloquies, to definite petitions and resolutions.

All this is explained so fully in the first meditation because S. Ignatius wished to point out once for all in this opening Exercise how the three powers are to be used in all the others, viz. that the memory should help the understanding, and the understanding in turn should supply motives for moving the affections and determining the will, which is the principal thing to be sought for in prayer. For although the understanding is to be used that we may gain knowledge, yet more stress is to be laid upon the affections and an interior savour of the truth than upon drawing out a multitude of thoughts and considerations,