Browsing by Author "Królikowski, Wacław"

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    The Ignatian Way of Discerning God’s Will. The Second Time for Making Election According to St. Ignatius of Loyola
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2023) Królikowski, Wacław
    Man was created to fulfill God’s will by following Jesus Christ. St. Ignatius of Loyola (1591–1556), through his famous Spiritual Exercises, proposes a path of spiritual development in which the retreatant comes to know oneself, comes to deeply know Jesus Christ and desires to love and follow Him more in the given state of one’s life. The Spiritual Exercises contain profoundly deep and effective Rules of Discernment of Spirits and Rules for Making a Good and Reasonable Election, aiding in the discernment of God’s specific will. In the latter, St. Ignatius identifies three times, as if periods, in which a reasonable and good election can be made. The purpose of the article is to scientifically analyze the second time for election. As St. Ignatius states, this occurs “when much light and understanding from the experience of consolations and desolations and from experience in the discernment of different spirits.” In the text, I use an analytical method and demonstrate that receiving much light and understanding from God regarding His will is accomplished by properly discerning spiritual consolations and desolations and by skillfully discerning the actions of different spirits, which is to be helped by an experienced spiritual director. In conclusion, I show that the Ignatian second time of election is immensely practical and helpful for anyone desiring to discern the specific will of God in order to follow Jesus Christ in the best way possible.
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    The Theological-Spiritual Sense of the Principle and Foundation at the Different Stages of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2024) Królikowski, Wacław
    The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola have been famous in the Church for almost five centuries for their extraordinary effectiveness in building and deepening one’s relationship with God. This effectiveness is attributable not so much to their content, which is related to the fundamental truths of the faith of the Catholic Church and to the contemplation of the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ, as to their precise method. The author of the Spiritual Exercises, by adapting their content to the exercitant, helps them to open themselves more and more to the action of the Lord God and to cooperate with him, so that he may ultimately love him in everything and serve his Divine Majesty. This final chord of man’s spiritual union with God is already present, as it were, in embryo in the first exercise of the Ignatian retreat, in the so-called Principle and Foundation (Principio y Fundamento). This exercise, commonly known as the Foundation, is, as it were, the root of the whole tree of spiritual development contained in the Spiritual Exercises. This is because the content of the Principle and Foundation develops and deepens more and more during the different stages of the Spiritual Exercises. The purpose of this article is to analyze scientifically the content of the Principle and Foundation and to show the theological-spiritual sense of the Principle and Foundation in the different stages of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The text uses the method of analysis of the source texts and the literature on the subject, as well as the hermeneutical method, and shows that the synthesis of the spiritual life contained in the Ignatian Principle and Foundation continually develops and reaches its culmination in the last spiritual exercise of the Ignatian retreat – in the so-called “Contemplation to attain the love of God” (Ad amorem). In conclusion, it is shown that the content of the Principle and Foundation constitutes the foundations of the spiritual life, which, on the path of development, leads the exercitant to be able to “in all things love and serve the Divine Majesty.” (SE 233)