Companions in Grace is a practical guide for directors of the Spiritual Exercises. Beginning with preparation work for an Ignatian retreat, authors Marian Cowan and John C. Furrell provide detailed instructions for each of the four weeks it takes to complete the Exercises. As they write in the introduction, “The goal is to assist a person’s growth into total spiritual freedom, with the unique ruling desire to choose God, all ways always.”
The authors also devote a section to St. Ignatius’s rules for discernment. A series of appendices includes suggested further readings, appropriate scriptural texts for use during the Exercises, directions for an eight–day retreat, and a primer on discernment.