Dilexit Nos §144

¹⁴⁴ The spirituality of the Society of Jesus has always proposed an “interior knowledge of the Lord in order to love and follow him more fully”. Saint Ignatius invites us in his Spiritual Exercises to place ourselves before the Gospel that tells us that, “[Christ’s] side was pierced by the lance and blood and water flowed forth”. When retreatants contemplate the wounded side of the crucified Lord, Ignatius suggests that they enter into the heart of Christ. Thus we have a way to enlarge our own hearts, recommended by one who was a “master of affections”, to use the words of Saint Peter Faber in one of his letters to Saint Ignatius. Father Juan Alfonso de Polanco echoed that same expression in his biography of Saint Ignatius: “He [Cardinal Gasparo Contarini] realized that in Father Ignatius he had encountered a master of affections”. The colloquies that Saint Ignatius proposed are an essential part of this training of the heart, for in them we sense and savour with the heart a Gospel message and converse about it with the Lord. Saint Ignatius tells us that we can share our concerns with the Lord and seek his counsel. Anyone who follows the Exercises can readily see that they involve a dialogue, heart to heart.