How it Began

When our small group of lay people began the Spiritual Exercises in 1986, the task felt daunting.  Sr. Dee Marie Reeder began with 12 lay people, whom she asked to continue as directors the next year.  Some did, but providing spiritual direction for others seemed like a major task. When Sr. Dee left after the first year, our small novice group (consisting of only lay people) felt ill-prepared yet willing to walk in trust.  

We wanted to provide a way in which the group of participants could meet together,  and hear more about the movements of the Exercises.  Yet to do so took many hours of planning, coordinating, and organization. At first, group meetings were hodge-podge at best. We had no formal application process, no brochure -- nothing.  

After several years of "seat-of-the-pants" planning and creating, Ellen Tomaszewski felt that if someone wrote down what our Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life (SEEL) group did each year, organized it into a manual, and updated it regularly, our group would benefit greatly.  That "someone" turned out to be Ellen (after all, it was her idea). 

Several people have read and made comments, including Fr. Larry Gooley, S.J., National Assistant to Christian Life Community (CLC), (who has written an introduction for the book) and Joyceann Hagan, assistant to the Provincial of the Oregon Province of the Jesuits. This manual provides over 200 pages of experience and testing that every director providing the Spiritual Exercises could benefit from.