Jump to Any Step (24 of 36 · Click to Expand All 36 Days & Exercises)
01. The Presupposition & How to Enter the Exercises02. Principle and Foundation03. The Daily & Particular Examen04. Meditation with the Three Powers on the First, Second & Third Sin05. Meditation on Personal Sins & The Exclamation of Wonder at God’s Mercy06. Repetitions of the First & Second Exercises with the Triple Colloquy07. Meditation with the Five Senses on Ultimate Separation08. The Call of the Temporal King & The Oblation to the Eternal King09. The First Contemplation: The Incarnation10. The Second Contemplation: The Nativity & Application of the Five Senses11. The Presentation in the Temple & The Flight into Egypt12. The Hidden Life at Nazareth & Finding the Boy Jesus in the Temple13. Meditation on the Two Standards & Second Week Rules for Discernment14. Meditation on the Three Pairs of Men15. Departure from Nazareth & Baptism in the River Jordan16. Christ Fasting & Tempted in the Desert17. The Call of the Apostles & The Wedding at Cana18. The Sermon on the Mount19. Calming the Storm & Walking on the Waters20. Sending the Apostles, The Sinful Woman Forgiven, Feeding the 5,000, The Transfiguration & Preaching in the Temple21. The Raising of Lazarus & The Supper at Bethany22. Palm Sunday: The Humble Entry into Jerusalem23. The Three Manners of Humility24. Making an Election25. The Last Supper, Washing the Feet & The Agony in Gethsemane26. Betrayal, Arrest & The Night at the Houses of Annas and Caiaphas27. Christ Before Pilate & Before Herod28. The Scourging at the Pillar, Crowning with Thorns & ‘Ecce Homo’29. Carrying the Cross & The Crucifixion30. The Descent from the Cross, The Burial & The Silence of Holy Saturday31. The Resurrection: Christ Appears to His Mother & to Mary Magdalene32. The Road to Emmaus, The Appearance to St. Peter & The Upper Room33. St. Thomas’s Confession & Breakfast by the Sea of Galilee34. The Great Commission & The Ascension of Christ Our Lord35. Contemplation to Gain Love36. The Three Methods of Prayer
Movement II · The Second Week (Illuminative Way) · Step 24 · Culmination of the Second Week
St. Ignatius of Loyola · Exx. 169–189

Making an Election — or Amending and Reforming One’s Own Life and State

How to discern a major decision through the Three Times of Election (Exx. 175–188)—or, if you are already settled in marriage and vocation without a specific decision to make, how to use Ignatius’s Exercise 189 to amend and reform your life.

Assigned Scripture Reading (NIV) & Mystery Points

Scripture Reading: Romans 12:1–2 · Ephesians 5:15–17 · Psalm 25:4–5

Romans 12:1–2 (NIV)
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Ephesians 5:15–17 (NIV)
15Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Psalm 25:4–5 (NIV)
4Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. 5Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

Points of the Mystery from St. Ignatius

Step 1 · Entering the Hour (2 Minutes)

Before You Start

Read Romans 12:1–2. Stand a step or two from your place of prayer for an Our Father (Exx. 75), reverence the Lord, and pray the Preparatory Prayer (Exx. 46).

Step 2 · Orienting the Heart & Imagination (5 Minutes)

The Preludes

First Prelude · Identifying Which Path Is Yours Today

Ask yourself plainly: (A) Am I currently discerning a specific changeable choice (such as joining an Order vs. not joining, changing a role, or making a concrete commitment)? Or (B) am I praying the Exercises without a specific binary choice on the table, seeking to deepen and reform my life in my current vocation (Exx. 189)? Both paths are explicitly built into Ignatius’s book.

Second Prelude · Composition of Place

See yourself standing before Christ the King at the close of the Second Week, placing your life, your household, your time, and your resources on the table before Him.

Third Prelude · Asking for What I Desire

Ask for a single eye of pure intention (Exx. 169) and the light of the Holy Spirit to see clearly how God our Lord wishes you to live and serve Him now.

Step 3 · The Body of the Exercise (30–40 Minutes)

Two Paths Through This Step: (A) The Election or (B) Reforming One’s Life (Exx. 189)

Follow Path A if you have a concrete decision before you, or Path B (Exx. 189) if you are already settled in your state of life (or use both together!):

Path A (Part 1) · First & Second Times of Election (Exx. 175–176)

Ignatius distinguishes three ‘times’ (modes) in which God shows His will:

  • The First Time (Exx. 175): When God our Lord so moves and attracts the will that without doubting, or being able to doubt, such devout soul follows what is shown it—as St. Paul and St. Matthew did.
  • The Second Time (Exx. 176): When enough light and knowledge is received from experience of consolations and desolations, and from the experience of the discernment of various spirits. Over several days or weeks, as you hold Option A and Option B before the Lord, you notice which one consistently brings deep peace, faith, hope, charity, and freedom (consolation), and which one brings agitation, constriction, or false consolation.

Path A (Part 2) · Third Time of Election — Two Ways for a Quiet Season (Exx. 177–188)

When the soul is not being tossed by strong waves of consolation or desolation, it is in a Quiet Time (Exx. 177) and can use two methods:

  • First Way (Six Points, Exx. 178–183): (1) Put before me the thing about which I want to make an election; (2) Keep before me the end for which I am created, holding myself in the middle like a balance scale; (3) Beg God to move my will; (4) Weigh on paper the advantages and disadvantages of keeping vs. leaving the option solely with respect to the praise of God and salvation of my soul; (5) Look where reason inclines more; (6) Offer that choice in prayer to God our Lord so that He may confirm it with peace.
  • Second Way (Four Rules, Exx. 184–188): (1) Check that the love moving me descends from above, from the love of God; (2) Imagine a person I have never seen or known, and ask what I would advise them to do for their greater perfection; (3) Consider, as if I were at the point of death, the form and measure I would then wish to have kept in this choice; (4) Look at how I shall find myself on the Day of Judgment, and choose now the course I would then wish to have taken.

Path B · For ThoseWithout an Election to Make — Amending & Reforming One’s Own Life and State (Exx. 189)

If you are already married or settled in a calling and are not making an unchangeable state-of-life election, Ignatius wrote Paragraph 189 specifically for you. He says it is very profitable, instead of making an Election, to give form and method to amend and reform one’s own life and state—setting before yourself your creation, your life, and your state entirely for the glory and praise of God.

Sit with the Lord and walk through four concrete areas of your daily Rule of Life:

  • My Interior Posture & Prayer Rhythm: How much time does the Lord ask of me in silence, fixed-hour prayer, and the Examen so that I sit in His love and receive it deeply?
  • My Household & Relationships: How am I called to be a stable pillar and rooted tree for my spouse, family, and friends?
  • My Work, Body & Strivings: Where do my daily energies (including exercise, work, and study) serve love, and what boundary keeps them from becoming a ‘Second Pair’ idol?
  • My Money & the Poor: As Ignatius asks in Exx. 189 (“how big a house and family he ought to keep, how he ought to govern and rule it... how much he ought to take for his family and household, and how much to dispense to the poor and to other pious objects”), how is Christ inviting me to distribute His gifts generously and simply?

The Confirmation · Offering Your Resolution to God (Exx. 183, 188–189)

Whether you have arrived at a specific decision (Path A) or formulated 2–3 concrete commitments for reforming your daily life and Rule (Path B), write them down clearly in your journal. Then kneel before God our Lord and offer this resolution to Him, asking His Divine Majesty to be pleased to receive and confirm it—bringing peace to your soul as its seal.

Step 4 · Friend to Friend & Looking Back (15–20 Minutes)

Colloquy, Post-Prayer Review & Repetitions

1. The Colloquy (5 Minutes)

Speak to the Eternal Father and to Christ our Lord, placing your written Election or Rule of Reform into His hands. Pray the Oblation of the Eternal King (Exx. 98) or the Our Father, resting in quiet trust.

2. The Post-Prayer Examen of Prayer (15 Minutes · Exx. 77)

After finishing the Our Father, remain quiet for ten to fifteen minutes (sitting or walking slowly) to examine how your prayer went. Ask: Where did my heart feel warmed, expanded, drawn to trust, or moved to tears (consolation)? Where did I feel dry, distracted, defensive, or negotiating with God (desolation or resistance)? Write down two or three honest sentences in your notebook.

3. Repetitions & Carrying the Mystery Through the Day

You have now completed Movement II: The Second Week. In Movement III (The Third Week), all debating, weighing, and deciding are over; you simply walk with Christ into Jerusalem to stay beside Him in His Passion, seeing how much He loves you.

Primary Text · From St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises (Exx. 169–189)
[185] Second Rule. The second, to set before me a man whom I have never seen nor known, and desiring all his perfection, to consider what I would tell him to do and elect for the greater glory of God our Lord, and the greater perfection of his soul; and I, doing the same, to keep the rule which I set up for the other. [186] Third Rule. The third, to consider, as if I were at the point of death, the form and measure which I would then want to have kept in the way of the present Election, and guiding myself by that rules, let me make my determination in everything. [189] Note. It is to be noted that regarding those who are already in the ecclesiastical state or married... there is no room to make an election about anything that is subject to an unchangeable election; it is very profitable, instead of making an Election, to give form and method to amend and reform one's own life and state of each one of them; that is, setting down his creation and his life and state for the glory and praise of God our Lord and the salvation of his own soul.
✠ ❧ ✠