The Bible in Personal Formation: A Dialogue

Abstract

The (Roman) Catholic Church is a large and complex institution. Its members use the Bible in many different ways, and always have done. Here we can only be selective, and look simply at one particularly influential Catholic approach to the use of the Bible: the Spiritual Exercises of lgnatius Loyola. lt offers a method of praying the Bible oriented to the individual's spiritual growth, which nevertheless takes the text seriously. lgnatius' writing is hardly attractive. Here is what lgnatius offers for Christmas, in what is in fact one of his more expansive, lyrical passages: