Adapting the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises for children

This project examined the deepening of children's spirituality through the adaptation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Students of ages 10-12 experienced the Spiritual Exercises in one of two formats: Grades 5 and 6 during weekly religion classes and a family setting outside of school hours. In both models, the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises were appropriately adapted while being sensitive to the cognitive, affective, and moral development level of children.; The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are a series of retreat sessions that invite the retreatant to experience God's presence and love through reflection on scripture passages and regular prayer. The goal is spiritual growth.; The empirical research was conducted at St. Christopher School (Rocky River, Ohio) and St. Raphael School (Bay Village, Ohio). Through pre-retreat and post-retreat data gathering, changes in the children's faith life were examined to determine how the children were affected by the retreat experiences. The project hypothesis states that the Exercises can be adapted for children resulting in a deeper spiritual life. By appropriately adapting the Spiritual Exercises, the hypothesis was affirmed.; The project is grounded in the various stage theories of development of James Fowler, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Eric Erikson as well as the process theory of faith development as posited by Karl Rahner, S.J. In addition there is a strong scriptural basis of support for this project.