Sin shatters God’s plan of love.
The sinner no longer lives with God
in a relation of son to Father.

If I am in the state of sin,
in order for me to return to the love of God I must
honestly recognize my faults,
be moved by confusion and repentance,
sincerely ask pardon for them
from my Father in heaven and from the Church,
and relying on God’s help
I must turn toward a better future.

If I have already been pardoned
or if I have remained faithful to my baptismal promises,
it is essential that I recognize,
according to St. Paul’s expression, that
“what I am now
I am through the grace of God” (1 Cor 15:10).

The First Week is the week of humility and generosity,
the week of necessary purifications.
Its purpose is to create in me an attitude that ought to be
a permanent feature of my spiritual life.

Put yourself in the presence of God and make the preparatory prayer. Ask him to inspire you.

Composition of Place

I will cast myself in the role of one of these three individuals; I will assume their sentiments and make them my own:

— The tax collector in Luke 18:13, who “stood some distance away . . . not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven”.

— The prodigal son in Luke 15:18, who said, “Here I am dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my Father.”

— The good thief at Calvary in Luke 23:41: “In our case we deserved [the sentence we were given].”

I will ask God our Lord for what I want and desire. Here I will ask to see clearly in what way I have sinned and to feel the gravity of sin as it is described in the Gospel so that I may be sorry and ashamed of myself if I have committed sin often. And I will ask to be grateful, humble, and vigilant if the Lord has kept me until now in my baptismal innocence.

First Point: The Fall of Lucifer and His Angels

My memory will remind me what the Bible and the Church teach: created in the state of grace, Lucifer and his angels revolted against God. Their fault was a fault of pride. They then went from the state of grace to the state of sin. They were separated from God, cursed by God. This is hell.

Next I will apply my understanding to this subject. I shall assess the weight of original sin, which misrepresents every perfection, however beautiful it is (the idea of the Pharisee). I will become aware of the need of recognizing God as the author of every good and of every virtue. I will call to mind the disastrous effects resulting from one sole mortal sin either in the visible world (the account of Judas) or in the invisible world (the Mystical Body), and in contrast, I shall recall the good that has come from one act of God’s love (the conversion of St. Paul; Mary’s Yes at the Annunciation, etc.).

My will, aided by faith, will penetrate as deeply as possible into the core of the mystery of sin (particularly the sin of pride), to appreciate its ingratitude, its “folly” toward God the Father. Either vocally or mentally, and with all the sincerity I can muster, I will make acts of repentance, of a firm purpose of amendment, of gratitude, of humility.

Second Point: Man’s Sin

My memory will conjure up for me the Genesis account of sin in terms of its spiritual message: the creation of man and woman in original justice, the confidence God bestowed upon them when he put them over all creatures and invited them to collaborate with him in his completion of creation, God’s prohibition, the woman’s and man’s disobedience in order to “be like gods”, the loss of original grace, and the entrance of sin into the world. Hence God’s plan seemed thwarted.

My understanding will reflect on these Biblical facts. It will weigh sin not with human scales (a passing and hardly serious human act) but with divine scales (the relationship with God broken, creation altered, the human conscience wounded, the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ on the Cross to make repara tion for sin, the reestablishment of order, the reconciliation with the Father and the restoration of peace, charity among men).

My will, placing itself resolutely on the level of faith, will adhere with all its strength to what God has revealed to us in the Bible about the gravity of sin, about the redemption, about his compassion for the repentant sinner. In imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary it will offer itself to participate energetically with Christ in the great work of the redemption of the world, in the restoration of justice everywhere in this world.

Third Point: The Sin of Someone Condemned to Hell

We must beware of putting a name on any particular person who is “damned”. Who knows God’s secrets? And his mercy? We proceed no further than to say that Jesus clearly acknowledged the existence of hell.

We simply remind ourselves of certain words found in Scripture, for example, these severe warnings: “Causes of falling are sure to come, but alas for the one through whom they occur! It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck” (Luke 17:1). “And if your hand should be your downfall, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have two hands and go to hell . . . where the fire will never be put out” (Mark 9:43-48).

I will make use of my understanding in my effort to penetrate the meaning of these words. Thus, for example: the Lord of goodness and compassion has revealed these realities to poor men like myself who are weak and tempted. Sin therefore is something that is serious — one of the most serious matters I have to consider. It is my everlasting life or death that is at stake.

I will become aware of the weakness of my will without God there to sustain it, without his strength. As a consequence of this realization I shall make not only acts of repentance and humility but also acts of confidence and abandonment. Jesus said, “Cut off from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and St. Paul, “I am a creature of flesh and blood sold as a slave to sin. I do not under- …stand my own behavior. I do not act as I mean to, but I do things that I hate” (Rom. 7:14–15).

Prayer in the Form of a Conversation with Christ

Imagining Christ our Lord before me nailed to the Cross, I will speak with him, asking him how it is that though he is the Creator, he has become man; and how it is that he came from eternal life to die such a death for my sins at a particular time.

Then, looking into myself, I will ask

— What have I done for Christ?

— What will I do for Christ?

— What ought I to do for Christ?

Finally, in seeing him in this plight, nailed to the Cross, I will ponder over whatever presents itself to my mind.

I will finish the meditation by reciting the Our Father.

Note: This colloquy, provided that it is extremely personalized, is one of the most important in the Spiritual Exercises. It pertains to my life here and now, not my past. It is in my present state that I should “order” the way I shall act tomorrow. Each person has his history; each one has his destiny. It is this existential ensemble of past and future that the retreatant ought to ponder before Christ accomplishing his destiny on the Cross.

Put yourself in the presence of God and make the preparatory prayer.
Ask him to inspire you.

Composition of Place

This can be the same as for the preceding exercise. I will ask for what I want and desire. Here it will be sincere repentance and genuine sorrow for my sins.

First Point: The Review of My Sins

I will call to mind all the sins of my life, reviewing my life year by year or period by period. The following classifications will help me in this consideration:

(1) where I have lived,
(2) my dealings with others,
(3) what responsibilities I have had; my calling in life.

We should avoid, however, drawing up a juridical, meticulous inventory, and even more we should watch out for any type of scrupulosity. This review should be done in the light of the Holy Spirit; that is to say, it should be done in an atmosphere of adoration, gratitude, and a deep appreciation of a grace-filled life.
Second Point: I Will Weigh My Sins and the Gravity of Their Disorder

Every capital sin—and to a certain extent any sin—is in itself a transgression against man’s conscience and very often an offense against others. This is so even if God did not expressly forbid it. Sin, then, is a disorder in my own personal life and in my dealings with others.

Third Point: I Will Honestly Consider Who I Am before God

Who am I? (1) What am I compared to all men? (2) What are men compared with all the angels and saints?footnote text not present on this page (3) What are all the angels and saints compared with God?

Then, just myself, what am I before God?

So it is this weak, finite being who stands up against God and says, “I will not serve. I will not obey.” There is something in common with Satan’s revolt at the core of every sin.

Being aware of what my sins are in reality—even those that at the time seemed to me to be of little consequence but to which I fully consented—makes me conclude that I have preferred myself to God.

Fourth Point: I Will Turn toward God and Say to Him:

Who are you, Lord? Who are you?

And I will in this way compare his wisdom with my ignorance, his power with my weakness, his justice with my iniquity, his goodness with my wickedness, his love with my selfishness, etc. The gravity of sin and the pains of hell are understood properly only when we contrast them with “the extraordinary love with which God has loved us”.

Fifth Point: Profound Wonder but Also Immense Gratitude Now Overwhelm Me

The Lord spared me at the time of my sin. Creation did not rise up against me but remained subdued, supportive, while I was …saying “no” to the Creator. God’s work of creation continued on for me and for my enjoyment. Had I really been aware of this patience of his, “a cry”, in St. Ignatius’ words, “of wonder accompanied by surging emotion” would have escaped my lips. And then there is St. Bruno’s aspiration: “Oh, pure goodness!”

I will conclude our meditation by addressing a prayer first to our Lady. I will ask her to obtain for me three graces from her Son: (1) the grace to see my sin with his eyes and to detest it as he detests it; (2) the grace to feel, even to the point of experiencing shame, an abhorrence for the disorder of what is sinful in my life so that I can put it in order; (3) the grace to discern what is good and what is evil in the world so that detesting what is evil I can put it away from me. I will then say a Hail Mary.

Afterward I will make the same petitions to Jesus, asking that he obtain from his Father these graces for me. Then I will say some prayer such as the Body of Christ.

Finally, I will address the Father, asking that he, the Lord eternal, grant me these three graces. Then I will say an Our Father.

We have already noted on pages 40-42 that the repetition is a most effective Exercise. We shall use it here. After the examination of conscience we made yesterday, it will be good today to go back and consider that magnificent colloquy of mercy that ended our meditation of the Third Day.

Put yourself in the presence of God and make the preparatory prayer.
Ask him to inspire you.

Composition of Place

“Imagine Christ our Lord present before you nailed to the Cross . . . seeing him in this plight, nailed to the Cross.”

Let us look closely at our crucifix: we stand before him with the burden of our personal sins and also, because we are members of the Church, with the weight of the sins of the world.

I will ask for what I want and desire:

• — in the light of the Cross of Christ better to understand interiorly the mystery of sin,
• — to see and understand sin as God sees and understands it, not as the world judges it.

First Point: “Asking Him How It Is That though He Is the Creator, He Has Become Man”

Indeed, this is a mystery. To appreciate it, we must ask God himself. He alone can respond.

Let us slowly read the passage where St. Paul expresses his astonishment and admiration in Philippians 2:6-7: Jesus Christ, “being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped at. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are.”

This is the first step of the Son of God’s self-abasement.

Indeed, the Word of God’s way of proceeding is exactly the opposite of the way a sinner operates.

— Revolt is the motivation for the sinner. For Christ it is selflessness and obedience.

— For the sinner it is pride. For Christ it is stripping himself of his divine prerogatives; it is humility and even embracing humiliations.

With him how far we are from any type of love that is conditional, calculated!

Verbum caro… The Word was made flesh … Adore….

What a refinement of human nature!

“You will be like gods”, Satan said to the man and woman, and they sinned.

And now that has been realized, and even more than realized: man, in uniting himself with the Word Made Flesh, becomes a son of God, is “one” with God.

Second Point: “How Is It That He Has Passed from Eternal Life to Death Here in Time?”

This is the second cause of astonishment, the mystery that is even more bewildering than the Incarnation: he who is presented to us as Life everlasting (“I am the Life”, “I am the Resurrection and the Life”) knows death in time, death on the Cross.
In the passage from Philippians cited above, St. Paul describes Christ’s death on the Cross as the final step in all his actions of self-abasement: “And being in every way like a human being, he was humbler yet, even being obedient unto death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:7–8).

Indeed, this death of God on a cross is a stumbling block and folly for men. As St. Paul wrote: “We are preaching a crucified Christ: to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, to the gentiles foolishness, but to those who have been called . . . a Christ who is both the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Cor 1:23).

Before, death had been an obstacle and a scandal to human intelligence, but how much more of an obstacle and scandal is it when it includes him who said that he was “Life Everlasting”? Only the Resurrection could solve—up to a point—this problem and could resolve this apparent contradiction.

And yet Jesus Christ went even as far as that.

Third Point: The Only Response to These Two “How Is It That’s?”

Only one answer: “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

“God so loved the world that he sent his only son” (John 3:16).

“Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins” (1 John 4:10).

But if so much love was necessary to make amends for our sins, then sin is a grave matter, infinitely grave. Is it not true that on the moral and spiritual plane it is the most grave matter there is?

Indeed. For it ruins “the purpose and good pleasure” that God had determined for man from all eternity. It would take the Passion and death of God to reintroduce us into the intimacy of the Trinity.
Fourth Point: “Then I Will Reflect upon Myself and Ask: ‘What Have I Done for Christ? What Am I Doing for Christ? What Ought I to Do for Christ?’”

I will look at myself now as I am at the present moment. What is the connection between me now and what I have been meditating on? I should see my life only in the light of the love with which I am loved. The law of love is exacting. St. Ignatius remarked: “It is good to call attention to two points: the first is that love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words.” The second is that “love consists in a mutual sharing of goods.”

(1) “What have I done for Christ?” More of a confusion and shame about myself and about the niggardliness and lukewarmness of my love than about my sins, which I should not bother to enumerate.

(2) “What am I doing for Christ?” The mediocrity of my life. My defects. My lack of purpose and courage.

(3) “What ought I to do for Christ?” A firm purpose. In an ideal life that goes beyond the firm purpose. St. Paul’s message to the Colossians maps out for us the way to love: “I make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church” (Col I:24).

Let us note “for Christ”, a phrase that is repeated over again like a refrain. We are not face to face with a code, a law, but with Someone who loves us and who calls us to love in return: “Everything in Christianity”, Claudel said, “always comes down to a face-to-face encounter.”

I will end this meditation (which is merely a long dialogue with Christ) with a most intimate Our Father, which I will recite very slowly. God’s plan for man and for creation is contained in its entirety in this prayer, “which our Savior has taught us”.

Following the grace we have received up until now and our own preference, we will meditate today on the account of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), or on the woman who was a sinner in Simon the Pharisee’s house (Luke 7:36–50), or on Peter’s denial (Mark 14:66–74), or, even better yet, on hell. Some of the saints have revealed to us what kind of a role the fear of God’s judgment—a salutary, filial fear based on faith—has played in forming their attitudes and in their sanctification.

This prayer on hell will introduce us to a new method of prayer, one that is called the Application of the Senses (see p. 39).

This prayer demands a great spiritual simplicity on the part of the retreatant, a kind of special skill that will enable him to hear Jesus’ words just as he said them and as the people of Galilee understood them.

But first we call to mind two pieces of advice from St. Ignatius and one important spiritual principle:

(1) “It is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but the intimate understanding and relish of the truth.”

(2) “I will remain quietly meditating on the point in which I have found what I desire, without any eagerness to go on until I have been satisfied.”

And our spiritual principal: the Application of the Senses is built up in stages from the most materialistic (the senses of the body) to the highest spiritual prayers (the senses of the soul).

Depending on what appeals to him and on the grace he has been given, each person picks out what he wants from among this whole scale.

Put yourself in the presence of God and make the preparatory prayer.
Ask him for his grace.

Composition of Place

One of the following:

— before Michelangelo’s well-known fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel,

— before some medieval tympanum or stained-glass window depicting hell,

— the scene of the Last Judgment described in Matthew 25:31–46.

I will ask for what I desire and want: here it will be a deep sense of the pain that the lost suffer, so that if I ever forget the love of my Father in heaven, at least the fear of these punishments will keep me from falling into sin. (We should not forget that each time he spoke of hell, our Lord presented it with an almost brutal realism. Our prayer ought to preserve our Lord’s same “tone of speaking”.)

First Point: To See with My Eyes

(1) What the Gospel calls the “darkness outside”:

“But the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness outside” (Matt 8:12).

“As for the good-for-nothing servant, throw him into the darkness outside” (Matt 25:30).

St. John and St. Paul present the redemption as a battle between Light and Darkness. I will strive to enter into that vision of the world.
The Passion is presented as the hour of the “power of darkness”. I will see the darkness that covered the earth at the moment of Christ’s death (Luke 23:44 and Matt 27:45).

(2) The “fire”: In ignem aeternum… Compare the great scenes of the Last Judgment (Mark 13; Matt 24) and also Matthew 18 and Mark 9.

“It is better for you to enter into life with one hand, one foot, one eye than … be thrown into the hell of unextinguishable fire.”

Second Point: To Hear with My Ears

(1) The “cries” of the damned (Matt 8:12; 24:51; Luke 13:28),

(2) Their “grinding of teeth”; stridor dentium cited twelve times in the Gospels,

(3) In the parable of Lazarus, the appeals the rich man made in his conversation with Abraham (Luke 16:19–30),

(4) The terrible sentences meted out to the damned at the Last Judgment (“Go away from me, with your curse upon you” [Matt 25:41]).

Third Point: To Smell the Odor

This is the “corruption” of which St. Paul speaks (Gal 7:8; 1 Cor 9:25; 15:53) and about which St. Peter writes (1 Pet 1:23).

Fourth Point: To Taste

Such bitter things as tears, sadness, remorse of conscience:

— the thirst of the evil rich man in his torment (Luke 16:24)

— the bitterness of divine wrath, the despair of the damned, the “second death” in comparison to the “life” of love and joy the Word incarnate came to announce and promise in the name of his Father

Fifth Point: To Feel by My Sense of Touch

(1) The “rejected” at the Last Judgment . . . like the bad fish the fisherman rejects; like the chaff they separate from the good grain and burn; like the dinner guest at the feast who was without the proper garment; a force that pushes us to the outside; a brutal, definitive decision with no appeal,

(2) The fiery furnace: “the fiery lake of burning sulphur” (Rev 19:20; 20:10),

(3) Contacts with the damned, the demons . . . what surroundings! We who were made to be “one” with the Trinity, to live eternally in the company of the Virgin Mary, the angels, and the saints.

I will enter into conversation with our Lord. I will call to mind those who are in hell. Some did not believe in his coming; others who did believe nevertheless did not keep his commandments, of which “the first and the greatest” is “you shall love . . .” I will then thank him that he has not let me die at those times when I was unfaithful, that he came to find me in my wretchedness, and that he has always and unceasingly treated me with so much tenderness and compassion.

I will close my prayer with an Our Father.

It is fitting that we should end this first week with a vision of faith and hope. Despite sin, God’s plan can be realized, is realized. The most cruel affliction of sin remains: “You shall most surely die” (Gen 2:17), but henceforth death is changed: for the elect it is a passage, the passage to life everlasting in heaven.

Place yourself in the presence of God and make the preparatory prayer. Ask him to inspire you.

Composition of Place

Calvary at the moment of Jesus’s death… or before Lazarus’ tomb when Jesus called him forth.

I will ask for what I desire and want. Here it will be that my faith in eternal life will be firm and profound and that from this moment forth I be one of those to whom the marvelous promise of St. Peter pertains: “God called you out of darkness into his wonderful light!” (1 Pet 2:9).

First Point: The Mystery of Life and the Mystery of Death

(1) Life is a mystery, but we have some experience of it. Because we have no experience of death, it is even more of a mystery. Without Christ’s revelation it is the “black hole”. Death is “absurd” and makes life also “absurd”.
(2) And yet death is life’s most certain fact. I will die. But this certain fact is wrapped up in uncertainties. St. Francis de Sales says this about it: “One day, my soul, you must depart from this body. When will it be? In winter or summer? In town or country? During the day or night? With or without warning? As a result of illness or accident? Shall I have a chance to go to confession? … Unhappily, I know none of these things; only one thing is certain: I will die, and sooner than I imagine.” St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, 30–31.

Second Point: Death Is the Great Separation

And for this reason it is the great light of truth.

(1) At the instant of my death the world dies for me. It is all over. It topples over into nothingness for me.

(2) No. Not everything is finished. At that same moment, God sorts the weeds from good grain that grew up during my soul’s time on earth. It is the moment of truth: there is that which remains and lives on because it was built upon God, and there is that which dies and disappears because it was “handed over to vanity”. Please God there is nothing in me that merits this “second death” about which St. John speaks in his book of Revelation (Rev 20:14).

(3) Seen in this light everything during a person’s earthly life that “mortifies” (that is, puts to death) takes on its true worth. “In my estimation all that we suffer in the present time is nothing in comparison with the glory that is destined to be disclosed in us” (Rom 8:18). In this light we understand better what St. Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Yes, the troubles that are soon over, though they weigh little, train us for the carrying of a weight of eternal glory that is out of all proportion to them” (2 Cor 4:17). On condition that “the troubles” are joined to the Passion of our Lord: “Because you have died through your baptism, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.”
But when Christ is revealed—and he is your life—you too will be revealed in all your glory with him“ (Col 3:3-4).

Third Point: Death for the Christian Is a Passage to Life

We should relish the words in the First Preface of the Mass for the Dead with all the savor of faith and hope these words contain: “Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended” 1 (it goes from the temporal to the eternal). This wonderful metamorphosis—the grain of wheat that that dying gives birth to the shoot or the chrysalis that becomes a butterfly—gives us some idea, however imperfect, of this process.

(1) Life everlasting—this is what Jesus, the Word made flesh, has come to bring us here below. By his death and Resurrection he has conquered death, the result and the symbol of sin. “Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?” (I Cor 15:55). Jesus presents himself to men as the Life, the Bread of Life. Let us reread St. John’s magnificent sixth chapter or the account of the raising to life of Lazarus (John II).

(2) Life everlasting is heaven. Heaven is God possessed, loved for all eternity; better, it is God possessing us, loving us, uniting us to himself during all eternity. Let us reread chapter 21 in the book of Revelation, or the Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:1–10), or many a chapter from the New Testament. Our basic, existential appetite for life, for joy, for love, for unity will be altogether satisfied, fulfilled. Death enables the faithful Christian to pass to this unhoped-for state of being “face to face” with God. “Now we see only reflections in a mirror, mere riddles, but then we shall be seeing face to face” (I Cor 13:12). “My dear friends, we are already God’s children, but what we shall be in the future has not been revealed” (I John 3:2).

(3) Far from making us “hate” the world, this perspective should incite us to save the world, as far as it is in our power to do so, to work for its sanctification and for man’s progress toward unity …and charity. Let us not forget that “the whole of creation, until this time, has been groaning in labor pains” (Rom 8:22). We achieve our own personal salvation in the perspective of “knitting God’s holy people together in Christ” (Eph 4:13). “But our homeland is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transfigure this wretched body of ours into the mold of his glorious body, through the working of the power that he has, even to bring all things under his mastery” (Phil 3:20).