This book is designed for priests, religious, and laymen who sincerely want to place themselves “face to face” with God so as to order their lives along his loving designs but who, because of professional or familial commitments or for any other reason, cannot go off somewhere to follow the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for three, eight, ten, or thirty days. Provided these individuals put aside one or two hours of silence each day at home for a week (a month would be better), they can still make an excellent retreat.See p. 233 for an eight-day retreat plan. It is vitally important, however, that these individual retreatants place themselves under the direction of a competent spiritual guide, with whom they can converse in complete confidence, one who knows the Spiritual Exercises well and who will explain to them how God is dealing with their soul and who will accompany them in their search for the true love of God.

This is how Ignatius, Peter Favre, and their first companions gave the Spiritual Exercises.