The Spiritual Exercises

You pray ordinarily four or five separate hours in a day.  You prepare for that hour, and then at the end of it you give 15 or 20 minutes to looking back at what you did and what happened, and you take notes on that.

You meet with a guide or a director every day, and you tell the director what you want to tell him or her.  Of course, the more you tell, the better the director can help.  The director is aware that this is not confession and does not need to know your conscience, unless you want to tell it.

Everything else is very helpful.  Were you up, were you down?  Was it easy to pray, was it hard to pray?  Did you have some ideas?  Is some glimmer of a desire beginning to take shape to do this or that, or to be that way or this way?  Is some glimmer beginning to shape up?  What did you go through in your prayer?  Do you know Jesus better?  Did you have some insight into Peter or Mary or Judas?  What was going on in your spirit?