“Rules for becoming aware and understanding to some extent the different movements which are caused in the soul, the good, to receive them, and the bad to reject them” (St. Ignatius).
Understanding St. Ignatius’ “Rules”
When St. Ignatius refers to these guidelines as “Rules,” he indicates their practical nature. These are not lengthy spiritual treatises but concise, actionable norms designed to help us navigate the spiritual life effectively. The process outlined by St. Ignatius involves three key steps (acronym AIR):
- Aware: The first step is to become conscious of the spiritual movements within your mind and heart. This awareness is crucial for recognizing the stirrings that influence your soul (click here for more).
- Identify: The second step is to identify and understand the source of these moments. Are they prompted by the good spirit, the bad spirit, or perhaps by your own inclinations? Understanding the origin of these feelings helps determine the appropriate response (click here for more).
- Respond: Once you have become aware and understood the nature of these movements, the final step is to respond and take action—embracing the movements from the good spirit and rejecting those from the bad spirit (click here for more).
What are the Rules?
1. The fruit of St. Ignatius’ spiritual journey to true freedom.
These Rules are not merely theoretical; they are born from St. Ignatius’ experiences and insights during his spiritual journey. “These rules present the formal codification of insights and responses that aroused and found justification in Ignatius’s spiritual life and pastoral experience” (Gallagher, DS, xvi).
To learn more about how St. Ignatius came up with the Rules, click here.
Fr. Gallagher emphasizes that these Rules are fundamentally about “setting captives free” (Luke 4:18). Jesus’ mission was to liberate us, offering a life of freedom—free from deception and free to love and serve God. As Fr. Gallagher notes, “The basic message of Ignatius’s fourteen rules for discernment is liberation from captivity to discouragement and deception in the spiritual life” (DS 6).
“The words that Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue of Nazareth as a summation of his entire redemptive mission also express the central theme of this book: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives … to let the oppressed go free’ (Luke 4:18). This book is about setting captives free. Each rule, as we will see it in the following chapters, will guide us one step further toward that freedom” (DS 6).
Fr. Gallagher shares his personal experience, stating, “In my own life, these fourteen rules have become a treasure. They set me free to accept God’s loving grace in time of spiritual consolation, and they supply indispensable wisdom in the struggle of spiritual desolation” (SCF, xi).
2. Daily guidelines for those in “the purgative life.”
St. Ignatius tells us that these Rules are particularly suitable “for the first week” of his Spiritual Exercises, which corresponds to “the purgative life” (SpirEx, 10). This stage involves striving to overcome sin and growing in the service of the Lord.
The Rules provide essential guidance for “a discerning life,” where we “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). They offer practical language to help us understand the contrasting movements within our hearts—the ordinary yet complex spiritual experiences we all face—and how to respond wisely and effectively. These Rules are not meant for “remote spiritual phenomena but for the ordinary spiritual experience of all faithful persons” (DS 5). Their purpose is to help us discern God’s will daily. As Karl Rahner observed, Ignatius’ “rules for the discernment of spirits provided a practical and formal systematic method for discovering God’s will for an individual” (Gallagher, DS xvi).
That’s why St. Ignatius calls them Rules for the Discernment of Spirits. “Discernment” comes from the Latin discernere – the process of separating things according to their qualities, distinguishing between one thing and another. Therefore, “to discern” is to identify one spiritual reality as different from another. “Of spirits” describes what is to be discerned, that is, which spiritual realities are to be distinguished, one from the other. “spirits” = the affective stirrings in the heart—joy, sadness, hope, fear, peace, anxiety, and similar feelings—with their related thoughts, that influence our life of faith and our progress toward God.
3. For those who have been evangelized.
“There is no fear in love” (1 Jn 4:18). If we stand before the door of a house and know that beyond the door is one who loves us, it is not hard to open the door and enter the house. When the human heart discovers that to be within is above all to encounter the love of the Redeemer, then love casts out fear, and we can be within and aware. Evangelization, then—simply to know that there is a Redeemer who loves us, a Trinity that dwells in our hearts, a Lord who loves us infinitely—must always precede discernment.
Evangelization is then followed by catechesis, the deeper penetration into the mysteries of our faith. A heart that has welcomed the Savior, opened itself to growth in faith, and now lives that faith daily, is ready for discernment. Therefore, the only presupposition for grasping these Rules is personal faith in Christ, with some sincere effort to live that faith. Persons who live thus always understand Ignatius’s rules: the rules only put words to what they have already experienced.
“The best way to learn the Rules is from the inside out – from my lived experience… you need your own living parable… to what shall I compare spiritual desolation…” (Fr. Scott Traynor).
4. Brief and need clarification.
St. Ignatius was a master of brevity, but sometimes at the cost of clarity. The concise and sometimes imprecise wording of his rules can be misleading without proper context. As Fr. Gallagher explains, “Only through an appropriation of the Ignatian spirit which desires to know Christ more deeply, to love him more ardently, and to follow him more faithfully—as well as a meticulous reading of the texts—does one begin to fathom the spiritual profundity of the rules drawn up by this mystical titan” (DS xvi-xvii).
Prodigal Catholic 