Personal Writings (St. Ignatius of Loyola, 1522-1556)

Much like Journal of a Soul, the completion of this book was a "mop-up" operation. For class, most of our attention was on the short biographical sketch, spiritual diary (lots of crying at Mass), and the Spiritual Exercises. The forty or so letters that make up the bulk of the middle of this book, assembled in 1996 for Penguin Classics, were left for individual study and a paper. Therefore, during class I focused heavily on the seventh letter (more on that below) and heard the thoughts of the other students on a few of the other letters. It was interesting to go back, with one finger on the timeline of St. Ignatius's life, and read through the letters and reconstruct early Jesuit history, so I'm glad I spent the time doing so.

My "focus letter" was the seventh ("Blueprint for a New Order") in which Ignatius criticizes some of the failings of the new Theatine order, founded by future antagonist Pope Paul IV, to whom the letter is addressed. You can see Ignatius resolving not to follow the same path with the Jesuits, although their reforming goals are quite similar. Although there were many other insightful letters to choose from, I'm glad I picked this one.

As far as a reading this book cover to cover, it was a little challenging in spots. The quasi-contemporary biographical essay was fairly interesting, but the "spiritual diary" was a little strange, with Ignatius usually recording whether or not he cried at Mass and not a whole not more. The letters need to be read with some space in between each one, otherwise it ends up being a blur and not doing justice to each individual work. The final section, the Spiritual Exercises, are no doubt historically important, but at times feel like reading an instruction manual. I mean, it sort of is an instruction manual, and a very important one at that for the historical record, but it can be easy to glaze over the finer points if speed reading and trying to meet deadlines!