Majestas Divina

Extract

The name of Fr. Erich Przywara will be chiefly familiar to English readers through his “Augustine Synthesis” and “Newman Synthesis.” In “Majestas Divina” he has attempted what may be described as an interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. Many people find the Spiritual Exercises a baffling work. Even those who are familiar with the practice of making retreats may fall into a literalism in their study of the text which prevents their seeing the movement of thought and feeling which makes the book of the Exercises the powerful instrument that it can be. It seems to be the great merit of Fr. Przywara’s work that it brings out the pattern woven by the words of St. Ignatius, and by linking up the language of the Exercises with St. Ignatius’s other writings—his Constitutions and Letters in particular—clarifies that often misunderstood thing, “Ignatian Spirituality.”

In this first section, the author is concerned to underline the general dispositions of mind and heart that are required of one who would learn aright the lessons that St Ignatius is seeking to teach. The section is entitled “Solitude” because a certain solitude of spirit, expressed in the practice of silence and withdrawal characteristic of a retreat, is fundamental if the exercitant is to draw near to God.

The translator has adopted the device of printing his version in short phrases simply in order to make it possible for the English reader to cope with the massive German sentences of the original.