Most people who make the Spiritual Exercises these days do them over the course of six or seven months. This “retreat in daily life” involves daily prayer and reflection while you are doing all the the things you usually do. It’s sometimes called a “nineteenth annotation” retreat because Ignatius’s provision for this kind of retreat was the nineteenth item on a list of instructions he gave to spiritual directors. This is how I made the Exercises. Read all about it here.
Many nineteenth annotation retreats get started this time of year and end around Easter–thus roughly following the church’s liturgical year. An online version of such a retreat begins this week at Creighton University’s Online Ministries website. It’s a self-guided retreat using material on the site. The retreat is also available as a book–Retreat in the Real World. Take a close look at it if you’ve ever thought about making the Spiritual Exercises.