Praying for Freedom

2025 Catholic Media Association Second Place Award, Inclusion in the Church

Why do the Spiritual Exercises not change us as deeply as we hope? This is the haunting question that was raised at the recent general congregation of the Jesuits about Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises and the question the contributors to this book explore and attempt to answer in the context of ongoing racial injustice in the United States. All of us who love and are engaged in Ignatian spirituality must also ask ourselves this same question. Contributors explore this question by examining how “color-blindness racism” determines our interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises in the United States. Animated by the grace of Ignatius's conversion experience these spiritual directors, theologians, and leaders in Jesuit ministries offer insightful scholarly and creative pastoral engagement of the Spiritual Exercises for the ongoing journey of conversion from racism and white supremacy in the United States.

Contributors include:
Maka Black Elk (Oglala Lakota) — Laurie Cassidy — Matthew J. Cressler — Pauline Delgadillo — Elise Gower
Armando Guerrero Estrada — Jeannine Hill Fletcher — Ken Homan, SJ — Alex Mikulich
Maria Teresa Morgan — Marilyn L. Nash — Maureen H. O’Connell — Hung T. Pham, SJ
Christopher Pramuk — Andrew Prevot — Patrick Saint-Jean, SJ — Justin T. White