The First Spiritual Exercises: Four Guided Retreats | As Originally Conceived by St. Ignatius Loyola

A radically innovative way to make the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, the classic retreat of Catholic spirituality, this creative and easy-to-use guide presents four retreats on inner peace that are, for the first time, accessible to anyone without getting away from ordinary life or meeting daily with a spiritual director.

For almost five hundred years, the Spiritual Exercises have been available only to priests and religious who could spend thirty days in silence under the guidance of a spiritual director. Now in The First Spiritual Exercises they are available as four retreats on inner peace to people in every stage of spiritual growth. Years of research and testing come together in Michael Hansen, S.J.’s, recreation of the way that St. Ignatius first gave the Exercises as he traveled with four companions, begging in bare feet and dressed in sackcloth.

Michael Hansen, S.J., is a retreat leader, speaker, and spiritual director on the retreat team at the Campion Centre of Ignatian Spirituality in Kew, Victoria, Australia. He has worked in schools and parishes and produced radio and television programs. He is the author of four other books.