Customer Reviews

The Ignatian Workout: Daily Exercises for a Healthy Faith

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Author Tim Muldoon begins the introduction of his book THE IGNATIAN WORKOUT with an observation: the busiest time at athletic complexes on college campuses is after the spring break when people realize the summer is near and the need to shed winter pounds before bathing suit season becomes urgent. He's familiar enough with college campuses as a student and later as a professor at Mount Aloysius College (where he taught when he wrote the book) and now at Boston College. He believes this is a somewhat futile activity, and uses his own training as a member of a crew team to show that the best way to exercise is to begin slowly, remain committed, and work toward a goal. He believes the same principles can be applied to the spiritual life and expands his ideas in the book.

The book is an introduction to the spiritual life based on the writings of St. Ignatius. He gives some basic insights into prayer then has four sections or "workouts" which are modified versions of the thirty day retreat. The key to getting the most from the exercises is perseverance and Muldoon believes that the workouts can be a springboard to a deeper spiritual life. He also includes a bibliography pf some wonderful books for further reading and includes some of my own favorites in his list: Margaret Silf's THE INNER COMPASS, James Martin SJ's IN GOOD COMPANY, Thomas Merton's THE SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN, and Gerard Hughes' GOD OF SURPRISES. He also includes websites for Creighton University and Sacred Space which have great materials and a list of retreat houses. Readers have more than an abundance of suggestions to deepen their spiritual life after reading.

Muldoon's writing style is engaging and the book should have a broad appeal. As I read it, the athletic analogies reminded me of someone else who saw the spiritual life as similar to athletics--St. Paul. I also appreciated Muldoon's view of spirituality--that it is more than just building up a relationship with God in order to feel good, that it extends beyond us too, clearly an Ignatian ideal and one that is central to Christian spirituality. This book is clearly aimed at people trying to integrate faith and life and while it has something to say to anyone who strives to live a life of faith, it is perfect for a mature high school or college reader or anyone trying to figure a way in the world.

The Ignatian Workout
Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith
ISBN: 0-8294-1979-9
Publisher: Loyola Press (...)

A new form of physical workout? Judging from the book cover and its head title (sans the sub-title), this book could well be perceived as a new method of physical workout. The cover features a man walking briskly on what seems like hot dry desert space. When I was reading this book on the train to work, I felt like the other commuters who had casually glanced my way would figure that I was reading a health book. Perhaps they're thinking I was trying to lose weight!

Tim Muldoon, the author, uses the image of rowers hard at practice to explain the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order in the Catholic Church. Here the author presents the Four Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises in simple layman and contemporary language. It is beautiful how he works the spiritual jargons into modern language and how he uses the nuances and practices of men who spent much time to perfect their craft of rowing. I think this is a creative way to make the Spiritual Exercises more readable and understandable. The essence of the Spiritual Exercises remains as St. Ignatius taught, that is, bible passages are given for reflection but the contemplative stance has a modern flavour to it.

If you care for a spiritual workout in layman's terms, pick this book up. Have a happy journey!

The Spiritual Exercises designed by Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500s were designed to help Christians discern God's presence in their lives and they reputedly help clarify decision-making process, by bringing people closer to God's voice. Despite the fact that these exercises were designed more than four hundred years ago, it has taken the world's writers about that amount of time before developed a written guide to the exercises that allows us to replicate them in our own homes.

Ideally these exercises are taken under the guidance of a spiritual director. Traditionally, people used to withdraw from society for a month to dedicate their lives to nothing but the exercises and listening for God's direction. Some very fortunate people still can afford the luxury of unemployment for a month and indulge in this type of direction. Some Catholic religious orders require the retreat before their members commit themselves to membership by vows. However, for most of us normal working Christians, decent spiritual direction is hard to find. I tried to do a local version of the exercises, that lasted several months, meeting with a spiritual director as a group once a week, but the spiritual directors kept canceling on the group and then changing, which made it difficult to develop rapport. If you find yourself in a similar situation, Tim Muldoon's book is the next best thing to a private retreat designed for a person who can't leave the world full-time to listen to God.

I thought the organization of the spiritual workouts was not very clear, which is why I rated the book "four" rather than "five" stars. During the Spiritual exercises, people meditate on a scriptural passage every day at the same time, for at least 30 minutes. Ignatian meditation recommends that a person imagine the scriptural passage as if the mediator was there. It is the mediator's decision what type of character s/he assumes in the meditation. If a meditation experience with a particular passage is particularly moving, Ignatian spirituality recommends spending more than one day with that passage, until the mediator feels s/he has received all the insight possible, before moving to the next passage. Muldoon very clear that progress is not determined by the number of passages covered, most weeks include more than seven passages, which left my simple mind confused as to what was best way to ration time and readings; (should I skip the ones I felt too familiar with, if I dwelled repeatedly on one passage for meditation?). Or should we go through every single meditation?

I found it most helpful to read the introductory part of each "week's workout," and then to only use one biblical passage for mediation during one sitting. His format for a daily examen and things to consider when seeking a meditative space were very helpful. I will follow these guidelines for meditating with scripture of lectio divine, long after I finish my spiritual exercises with him.

I've been using this book to guide me in the spiritual exercises. The author does an excellent job of making the Ignatian exercises accessible (without watering them down so as to make them ineffective) to modern Christians who seriously want to grow and strengthen their faith. Not for Roman Catholics only. This book will be very useful for all Christians.

This is a great program for all interested in getting their spirit in shape. It is an easy to follow, understandable, program to keep your spirit in tip top shape. Very easy to read and well thought out.

Perhaps the most important of spiritual practices is connecting with God each day. With the running back and forth of the daily life of many of us, we don't seem to have much time to spend with the most important Being in our life, God. Tim Muldoon has given contemporary readers a sure hand in how to communicate to God that we want Him with us each and every day. His Ignation workout is truly uplifting.

Tim Muldoon has done an excellent job making Igantius' Spiritual Exercises relevant to the world we live in today. He also has an engaging writing style that absorbs the reader.

Great introduction to the spirituality of Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola written for an athletic perspective. Very accessible for the Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

It is really interesting that this book does explicitly what few religious texts do, but one thinks they would. Namely, it compares spiritual endeavors to physical fitness. There is a value in not mincing words about it. And the author sets out to explain the jock particulars. Of course it involves discerning "good pain" from "bad pain", just as an athlete would. Again that the author is so explicit about this, with no couched niceties is commendable, precisely because one always thinks that this drive to athleticism is what lies behind a lot of the tropes of spirituality (even for the quite un-athletic, ironically!). But a video using a phone interview with the author on the the major online video site, reveals the real conundrum of this sort of thinking. Muldoon is trying to explain the perennial question of how God can allow tragedy like the Japan earthquakes. He then adds as a gloss that perhaps it might be seen as similar to a parent "interrupting" a child's activity to make them focus. The idea seems to be that the pain of the earthquake could be seen as God trying to do something similar, I guess for the Japanese. Yet this seems to make the human person's assessment of spiritual "good pain" or "bad pain" permanently vexed. If the mode of "interruption" is potentially disaster, which is for basically all normal human being psychologically incomparable and "unthinkable", then the sort of good-bad calibration or comparison the author suggests seems, well, meaningless. Or at least such meaninglessness is a permanent background for all such distinctions in a spiritual life, assuming one is inclined to make them. It is serendipitous that this video exists of Muldoon's comments, for this is a very difficult point to describe without such explicitness about a very vast topic. It seems to me an insuperable problem, practically speaking, with some of the basic ideas of Ignatian spirituality. Even with their rather natural jock appeal.