The themes and exercises for daily prayer extending over thirty weeks, set forth in this book, are intended for small groups of Christians who desire to make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius together.  This is not, of course, an elementary program for beginners.  Since extensive preparations will be needed, please confer the Common Faith, a companion volume, which provides a year-long program devoted to sharing the basics of Christian beliefs.

             That book is also meant to prepare groups of believers for what follows in the Communal Exercises.  It is designed as a contemporary “First Principle and Foundation” (Exx.23), and it should enable the members to grow into a new depth of solidarity, to gain a sense of belonging to a faith community today.

             It should ready them for this second phase of the overall program, which is to make the Ignatian Exercises, “in communal form” (that phrase is explained more fully in the opening paragraphs of the Introduction).  The method suggested for the group is the same as that already practised extensively in the preparatory program.  It embraces daily prayer periods on the exercises provided for each weekly cycle, weekly interviews with a personal director and a weekly two-hour group session animated by the leader/s

             The group sessions should be scheduled for a two- or three-week break at Christmas (at Easter a transition from the Third into the Fourth Week might proceed without any break).  This works well when the program begins in late September and concludes in May.  In the southern hemisphere, different arrangements may be devised.

             Each weekly session should be divided into two main parts:

Part I: Sharing the previous week’s prayer experiences. (60m.)

   Beverage Break:  (15m.)

Part II: Presenting a new theme and Its exercises. (45m.)

             The first five minutes might be devoted to an opening prayer:  a Scripture passage selected for the occasion, or another reading, which may invite spontaneous responses from all present and serve to draw everyone into a contemplative attitude.  Similarly, five minutes at the close of the session should usually be set aside for practical arrangements.

             Sharing prayer experiences:  Two sets of skills are called upon in these important sessions.  First come experiencing skills, and secondly, reflecting skills.  Because these sets of skills are opposite in kind, they need to be practised separately.  Let me list and describe them briefly:

I. Experiencing Skills:

1. Learning how to pray daily on imaginative materials: short Scripture texts, symbols, stories, or remembered actual events from one’s own life.
2. This means turning off the thinking mind and the controlling acts of willpower in order to allow oneself to receive the full impact of the exercise in one’s deepest heart.
3. Each member of the group must know how to get in touch with actual responses of felt-knowing, whether negative or positive or both, and to permit these real movements of sentir to have their way for a time.
4. Since our culture tends to prevent this, some members may need to get free of false habits of self-repression.  According to St. Ignatius, the Lord moves us directly at the very centre of our being.  If not, then something is probably blocking that occurrence (see Exx.6)


II. Reflecting Skills:

1. Learning how to keep a journal which describes one’s actual experiences as they happen in the daily exercises.  The skill here consists in delaying any interpretation until accurate descriptions are set down.  It assumes habits of respectful attention to one’s own responses.
2. Learning how to express one’s faith experiences to a spiritual director.  It takes time for many to make full use of a trained director, but the benefits are immense.  S/he will gradually teach each member the traditional language of the interior life.
3. Learning how to share faith experiences with the group at weekly sessions.  Some will do this easily enough at the start, but others may need to discover when to speak, what to share and how to receive and respond to the interventions of the others. 

             For example, the Introduction to the First Week makes a  distinction between sin as infidelity and sin as complicity.  If one grasps the significance of this development, then the exact way in which the Exercises have been introduced into contemporary culture in this work) or more exactly, the particular approach to our cultural situation which I have adopted — it is open to question, of course) may become much clearer.

             That insight on different phases of growth in experiencing sin was, in fact, the one which gave birth in my mind to the overall notion of the Communal Exercises as presented here.  At a moment when (in November, 1984) I was feeling crushed by the recent collapse of a whole year’s planning, the inspired views of Rita Leblanc about the Exercises done in common at her Centre in Lachine triggered off in my mind an explosive moment of creativity for future programing at Ignatian Centre.

             Reading over Monika Hellwig’s Understanding Catholicism shortly afterwards, the insight into sin as complicity emerged and the present way of re-envisioning the Spiritual Exercises as a whole was already present in germ.

             The program began in 1985-86 with a small group of participants and directors who experienced and shared the themes and exercises later published in the Common Faith (where sin as infidelity is developed within the larger context of creation and salvation).  In 1986-87 the Communal Exercises in a first version were written and used by a group for the first time.  None of the Guidelines for Discernment, nor the “Rules for sentire cum Ecclesia,” were as yet available.

             My thanks goes to the many theological writers who over thirty years or more have guided my efforts to pose contemporary questions on the meaning of the Spiritual Exercises (an inexhaustible gift!).  Also to all those who participated over the years in my two main workshops on cultural understanding of the Exercises (at Guelph, Toronto, Milwaukee and Calgary).  Their feedback sessions both stimulated and encouraged me a great deal.

             I wish to acknowledge as well the assistance given me by the team at Loyola House in Guelph, especially John English and John Veltri.  More than anyone else, however, I remember the late Bob Chase, the most affirming and creative friend one could hope to have, to whom I dedicate this book.

              Many others at Ignatian Centre in Montreal deserve my sincere thanks:  those who were brave enough to work through the Communal Exercises both as participants and as co-directors, especially Helen Normandeau, who assisted me on a week-to-week basis, and others in other programs on whom I was allowed to try out my new conceptions, especially Terry Kivimaki, Rita Ghey, Do Fox and Joe Cassidy.  To all of them my thanks.  And praise to Jesus the risen Lord, who dwells forever in our midst!

       J.W., s.j.
       August 15, 1988.

A NOTE ON THE SECOND EDITION

             The text has been reworked throughout and reset in a more legible font and layout.  But the major change is a redistribution of materials into two parts, the week-by-week exercises gathered at the front and the explanatory materials arranged in chapters in the second part, which becomes a “directory” for those (whether directors or directees) who are further interested or may be helped by them.  A selected bibliography has been added:  this lists books and articles that were influential in designing this program or useful in exploring its implications.

       J.W., s.j.

THE COMMUNAL EXERCISES -- a Contemporary Version of  The Spiritual Exercises in a Communal Form -- PART A: EXERCISES by  John Wickham, s.j.,   2nd Edition 1991 Ignatian Centre Publications Montreal, Canada. ---- can be purchased from the following:

The Ignatian Spirituality

Centre Of Montreal

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