Exercitia Spiritualia Signatii De Loyola

Author : Saint Ignatius (of Loyola)
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (318 download)

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Download or read book The Text of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius written by Saint Ignatius (of Loyola) and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola were approved and commended by Pope Paul III in the Brief Pastoralis officii cura, dated July 31, 1548. In this Brief the Pope says that Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, had related to him that "St. Ignatius, then general of the Society which the same Pope had erected in Rome and confirmed by Apostolic authority, had composed certain documents or Spiritual Exercises, drawn from the Sacred Scriptures and experiences of spiritual life, and had reduced them to the order most fitted to move the minds of the faithful to piety; and as Duke Francis had found that they were extremely useful and salutary for the spiritual consolation of and advancement of the faithful, not only from public report from many places, but also from his own plain experience at Barcelona, Valentia, and Gandia; and had therefore humbly petitioned, in order that their fruit might be increased, and more of the faithful be induced to use them with greater devotion, that the Pope would cause them to be examined, and if he should find them worthy, to approve and praise them; and that, having caused the Exercises to be examined by the Cardinal Bishop of Burgos, by the Vicar General of Rome, and by the Master of the Sacred Palace, adn having learned by their report that they were full of piety and sanctity, and very useful and salutary for the edification and spiritual advancement of the faithful...His Holiness, by his Apostolic authority, "of his own certain knowledge, approved, praised, and by the Brief protected the Exercises and all everything contained in them, strongly exhorting in our Lord all the faithful of both sexes, wherever they may be, to use such pious documents and Spiritual Exercises, and devoutly be instructed by them." Orlandini, in his History of the Society (Lib. viii, n.1.), informs us that two versions of the Exercises in Latin were submitted to the Censors appointed by the Pope, and both were approved without the alteration of a single word. Of these, the version chosen for printing was that which was the better Latin and therefore the freer translation. It was first printed for the use of the Society, though not published, in August, 1548. It bears the name in the Society of the Vulgate version, and was approved by the Fifth General Congregation, which showed its respect for it by placing the chief variations between it and the Spanish autograph original in footnotes, so that the Vulgate text might remain unaltered. The translation thus received was made by Father Andrew Desfreux. It is not certain whether the second Latin version that was submitted to the Censors is still in existence, but it seems probable that it is that contained in an ancient manuscript belonging to the Archives of the Society, which was written in 1541. It is but a rough translation, and this is probably the reason why, if it was one of the two versions examined by the Pope's orders, the other was preferred for publication. But this version has a special value as it was used by St. Ignatius himself, and has on its outer leaf the words in the handwriting of the Saint, "Todos exercitios breviter en latin," by which he meant to indicate, not that the book was an abbreviation of his Spanish original, but that the Exercises which are given only at length by word of mouth are here to be found in the terse brevity with which he had written them down. The original copy of the Exercises, as the Saint wrote them, is no longer in existence. But in the Archives of the Society a very precious manuscript is preserved, which consists of a Spanish copy of the Exercises, having on its margin some corrections in the handwriting of St. Ignatius. This was called by the Fifth General Congregation of the Society the Autograph. The principal variations or obscurities of the edition were corrected from this most venerable copy of the Exercises, and printed in a new edition for the Society's use in 1596. The late Father General John Roothaan conceived the happy thought of making a new and literal translation from the original Spanish, adding at the same time notes which were suggested mainly by the differences he discovered between the Spanish in which St. Ignatius wrote and the free Latin translation of Father Desfreux, and by the manner in which he carried out his design he has done more for the Exercises than any one who has ever lived since the time of St. Ignatius. At first, he remarks, the Exercises came down in a living tradition through the men who had received them from the lips of St. Ignatius himself; but in later times as they passed through the hands of such a large number, the original form had come to be disregarded to some extent. Since the publication of Father Roothaan's translation in parallel columns with the Vulgate text, no one has felt tempted to wander from the exact form in which the Exercises were bequeathed by St. Ignatius to the Society. The first translation of the Spiritual Exercises into English was printed "with approbation of Superiours at St. Omers by Nicholas Joseph Le Febvre," and the colophon of the book gives the date 1736. It contains, however, some meditations that St. Ignatius has not given, and the order of the whole book has been greatly changed. ... The present translation is taken directly from the Spanish, but it is needless to say that the translators have had Father Roothaan's Latin version constantly before their eyes. John Morris, S.J."--