Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Nine-Month Journey
The Sanctuary at Woodville is offering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius led by spiritual director Kat Gundersen. It is a nine-month journey to help you grow deeper with God, assimilating “head knowledge” to “heart knowledge” of God. It includes an hour of one-on-one spiritual direction and two hours of group spiritual direction each month. The program cost is $1,200 (payable in installments) and starts October 14, 2025 (flexible scheduling). Register below! Questions? Email [email protected].
Have you ever wanted to go deeper with God? Have you wanted to be able to hear from Him for more discernment in your life? Do you want to find Him in the everyday places? Do you want a deeper relationship with Him than ever before? We hope you will join us for the Ignatius Exercises in the fall of 2025!
We will use the book, "The Ignatian Adventure: Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius in Daily Life" by Kevin O'Brien, SJ. It offers "32 weeks of prayer and meditations to draw participants into a deeper encounter with God."
For our Journey with The Trinity, we will follow this prayer and meditation guide (meditations are almost all based on Scripture passages). The daily time commitment involves between 5 and 45 minutes a day in prayer/meditation, then journaling about your prayer experience. The journaling is to help you practice daily awareness as to what the Lord is bringing up in your life, as well as helping you see overall movements of the Spirit in your life. It is from your daily prayer/meditation/journaling experiences that you will share with the group, in group spiritual direction once a month, about the movement of the Spirit in your life (the director and the group will help you discern about that movement by their listening to God on your behalf during the time together). The once-a-month spiritual direction one on one with me will be along the same lines, to help you attend more closely to themes that God is raising up in your life through your meditation/prayer/journaling.
Each week of the Exercises there is a specified "grace" prayed for that is very simple. At the end of each week, you evaluate whether or not you have received that grace and if you are ready to move on. If you are not ready to move to the next week and grace, you simply stay with the first week, staying with particular meditations offered within that week until you sense release from the Spirit to move on.
The Exercises are a school of prayer. The two primary forms of praying taught in the Exercises are meditation and contemplation. In meditation, we use our intellect to wrestle with basic principles that guide our life. Reading Scripture, we pray over words, images, and ideas. We engage our memory to appreciate the activity of God in our life. Such insights into who God is and who we are before God allow our hearts to be moved.
Contemplation is more about feeling than thinking. Contemplation often stirs the emotions and inspires deep, God-given desires. In contemplation, we rely on our imaginations to place ourselves in a setting from the Gospels or in a scene proposed by Ignatius. Scripture has a central place in the Exercises because it is the revelation of who God is, particularly in Jesus Christ, and of what God does in our world. In the Exercises, we pray with Scripture, we do not study it. Although Scripture study is central to any believer's faith, we leave for another time extended Biblical exegesis and theological investigation.
Here is what some previous attendees have said about the exercises:
“My participation in this Ignatian Spiritual Exercises group has had the positive effect of providing the framework for a daily interaction with Scripture and prayer time with God. While I was not always as disciplined as I would have hoped, the structure of the Exercises along with the support of the group, helped me.”
“I find myself missing the exercises and the sharing with the group. I found that I connected with Jesus more deeply by doing the exercises. Using your imagination to connect with God was very moving. Doing the exercises was an intense spiritual training program that was very helpful during a difficult phase of my life. I would definitely do it again some time!”
The cost for the nine-month program would be $1,200 per person, which would include everything (individual spiritual direction monthly, monthly group meetings, three Saturday all day retreats at The Sanctuary) except the purchase of Kevin's book and your own journal. If the cost is prohibitive, please let me know and we can seek an arrangement. The payment can be divided into monthly payments or in one lump sum, as would suit your budget best. The first meeting will be October 14 at The Sanctuary at Woodville or by Zoom.
In Christ,
Kat Gundersen, Ignatius Leader
Spiritual Director
About Kat Gundersen
Kat Gundersen will be leading the Ignatius Exercises. Kat received her certificate in Spiritual Direction from the PAX Institute and her Masters in Spiritual Direction from Merrimack College. She has also been the Women’s Minister and Prayer director for various churches. Her passion is walking along side men and women in their journey with God. Her desire is to provide others with a safe space to listen to their heart’s desires, hear from the Holy Spirit and grow in their spiritual formation. She believes that the Ignatius Exercises is an amazing tool to help people in their walk with God and to learn discernment for their lives.