Chapter IV

Hence the _high esteem in which these Spiritual Exercises are held_ by the best judges in such matters. For instance, when the learned Pope Leo XIII wished to select the best means by which he might prepare himself and his domestic prelates to gain the plenary indulgence of the jubilee year 1900, he had two of our Fathers conduct in his palace the Exercises of the retreat; and, at his advanced age of over 90 years, he attended in person nearly all the meditations. His successor, Pope Pius X, gave similar marks of his esteem for these Exercises. There exists in our society a venerable tradition, which seems to date back to the earliest years of the Institute, to the effect that St. Ignatius was specially assisted by the Blessed Mother of God in composing his unique masterpiece. The inhabitants of Manresa, some years after his death, embodied this tradition in a beautiful painting, which they placed in the cave, representing him as kneeling before the figure of the Blessed Mother and Child, with his eyes fixed upon her lips, and his right hand extended as if ready to write what she dictated to him.

Father Henry Watrigant, S. J., relates that this tradition has been confirmed at various times by well authenticated revelations. Thus he says: “The venerable Father Louis de Ponte narrates that, when in the year 1600 Ours entered on their annual retreat, his penitent, the venerable Marina de Escobar, also began her retreat; and the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her and said that the Blessed Virgin Mary had been as it were the foundress of those Exercises, having instructed St. Ignatius to put them in that form.”