Ignatian Spirituality - what's the big deal?

[Tis_Bearself]

I’ve been reading for a while about Ignatian Spirituality. There is a pretty comprehensive website at ignatianspirituality.com and I have read about it on other sites, in books, in lives of the saints etc.

I feel a bit dim because I am not getting how Ignatian Spirituality is all that different from how one would typically practice their spirituality all day anyway, except maybe it has a few buzzwords. Yet, people talk about it like it is some unusual thing or new method of approaching life. I feel this way towards a huge number of Catholic spirituality groups/ movements etc., and mostly I don’t bother to look into it further as long as it’s working for the members of that particular group, but the vast majority of them seem to have cropped up in the last few decades and do not have the long history that the Jesuits have.

What is so different about Ignatian spirituality? What sets it apart? What am I missing?

 

[pianistclare]

Havng been educated by Jesuits it’s a discipline close to my heart.
This article sums it up pretty well:

How Ignatian Spirituality Gives Us a Way to Discern God's Will - IgnatianSpirituality.com

 

[adgloriam]

except maybe it has a few buzzwords

And “buzzwords” are actually the “pioneering” “coining” of “key concepts” setting a lasting “framework” that has become dominant to this day within the field of the different “Catholic Spiritualities” regarding “Discernment” and was integrated thereafter by other currents of thought and specific Charismas within the Catholic Church.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Thanks, that looks helpful, I will check that out to see if it provides new insights.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

And “buzzwords” are actually the “pioneering” “coining” of “key concepts” setting a lasting “framework” that has become dominant to this day within the field of the different “Catholic Spiritualities” regarding “Discernment” and was integrated thereafter by other currents of thought and specific Charismas within the Catholic Church.

Yeah, i kind of wondered if the special thing about it was that St. Ignatius came up with some of these concepts first and then many other groups picked up on them.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

This is the type of thing that I read and think, “Don’t we do that anyway when we have to make a big decision?” We consider the alternatives, pray and choose.
But it also seems that many decisions in life (or at least my life) didn’t need that much thinking about. I never had to sit down and think, is God calling me to do this or that. I don’t know whether that’s a flaw in myself or whether I just trusted in God to figure that he just puts me where I’m supposed to be.