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EXERCITANTES
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All meditations

First Week

Meditation on Sins

A meditation on the reality of evil and on the infinite mercy of God, who has waited for me.

Preparatory prayer

Ask God our Lord for the grace that all my intentions, actions and works may be directed purely to the service and praise of his Divine Majesty.

Composition of place

See with the eye of the imagination my soul imprisoned in this body that must die, and my whole self as if exiled in this valley among brute beasts.

Petition

Shame and confusion at myself, seeing how many have been lost for a single mortal sin, and how many times I deserved to be lost for so many.

Points

  1. Recall the first sin, that of the angels: created in grace, they would not use their freedom to reverence their Creator, fell into pride, and passed from heaven to hell.
  2. Recall the sin of Adam and Eve: how much penance they did, and how much corruption came upon the human race because of it.
  3. Consider the sin of someone who has been lost for a single mortal sin, and of many others lost for fewer sins than I have committed.
  4. Look at who I am, making myself small by comparison: what am I compared with all people? What are all people compared with the angels? What is all creation compared with God? And I alone, what can I be?

Colloquy

Imagine Christ our Lord before me, hanging on the cross, and speak with him: how, being the Creator, he became man, and from eternal life came to death in time, to die for my sins. Then, looking at myself: what have I done for Christ, what am I doing for Christ, what will I do for Christ?

Adapted from the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola (1548).