THIRD WEEK

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, [1914], at sacred-texts.com

FIRST DAY

THE FIRST CONTEMPLATION AT MIDNIGHT IS

HOW CHRIST OUR LORD WENT FROM BETHANY TO JERUSALEM TO THE LAST SUPPER INCLUSIVELY

(p. 152); and it contains the Preparatory Prayer, three Preludes, six Points and one Colloquy.

Prayer. The usual Preparatory Prayer.

First Prelude. The first Prelude is to bring to memory the narrative; which is here how Christ our Lord sent two Disciples from Bethany to Jerusalem to prepare the Supper, and then He Himself went there with the other Disciples; and how, after having eaten the Paschal Lamb, and having supped, He washed their feet and gave His most Holy Body and Precious Blood to His Disciples, and made them a discourse, after Judas went to sell his Lord.

Second Prelude. The second, a composition, seeing the place. It will be here to consider the road from Bethany to Jerusalem, whether broad, whether narrow, whether level, etc.; likewise the place of the Supper, whether large, whether small, whether of one kind or whether of another.

Third Prelude. The third, to ask for what I want. It will be here grief, feeling and confusion because for my sins the Lord is going to the Passion.

First Point. The first Point is to see the persons of the Supper, and, reflecting on myself, to see to drawing some profit from them.

Second Point. The second, to hear what they are talking about, and likewise to draw some profit from it.

Third Point. The third, to look at what they are doing, and draw some profit.

Fourth Point. The fourth, to consider that which Christ our Lord is suffering in His Humanity, 19 or wants to suffer, according to the passage which is being contemplated, and here to commence with much vehemence and to force myself to grieve, be sad and weep, and so to labor through the other points which follow.

Fifth Point. The fifth, to consider how the Divinity hides Itself, that is, how It could destroy Its enemies and does not do it, and how It leaves the most sacred Humanity to suffer so very cruelly.

Sixth Point. The sixth, to consider how He suffers all this for my sins, etc.; and what I ought to do and suffer for Him.

Colloquy. I will finish with a Colloquy to Christ our Lord, and, at the end, with an OUR FATHER.

Note. It is to be noted, as was explained before and in part, that in the Colloquies I ought to discuss and ask according to the subject matter, that is, according as I find myself tempted or consoled, and according as I desire to have one virtue or another, as I want to dispose of myself in one direction or another, as I want to grieve or rejoice at the thing which I am contemplating; in fine, asking that which I more efficaciously desire as to any particular things. And in this way I can make one Colloquy only, to Christ our Lord, or, if the matter or devotion move me, three Colloquies, one to the Mother, another to the Son, another to the Father, in the same form as was said in the SECOND WEEK, in the meditation of the THREE PAIRS, with the Note which follows THE PAIRS.