The Exercises represent a kind of spiritual journey, as they invite the one who makes them to consider the foundational truths of Christian life: creation as an act of love, human stewardship of creation, sin and forgiveness, the life and work of Jesus as a paradigm of discipleship, Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection and, finally, the surrender of all human life into the hands of a loving God. The Ignatian take on the Christian journey is to insist that it is a movement, an active progress towards a radical decision to live one’s life in harmony with Christ’s vision and values. The movement towards Christ is both inward and outward, horizontal and vertical, contemplative and active.
—Howard Gray, SJ, in An Ignatian Spirituality Reader
