NEW BOOK

In bookshops from 24 February 2025

FIRST BELONG TO GOD

Spiritual exercises with Pope Francis by Austen Ivereigh – preface by Pope Francis, pp. 304 - €22.00 (Original title: First Belong to God. On Retreat with Pope Francis).

Drawing from the wisdom of Pope Francis and the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, Austen Ivereigh offers a captivating spiritual guide for our turbulent times: conceived as an eight-day Ignatian retreat, the book is a useful map for living a deeper discipleship.

“This is not the time to hole up and close doors. I see clearly that the Lord is calling us to come out of ourselves, to get up and walk. He is asking us not to look away from the pains and cries of our time, but to enter into them, opening channels of his grace. Each of us is that channel by virtue of our baptism. It is a matter of opening it and keeping it open. May these eight days in which you taste his love help you to feel the Lord's call to become a source of life, hope and grace for others, thus discovering the true joy of your existence”.

In these few lines from Pope Francis’ Preface one can grasp the meaning and richness of this book by Austen Ivereigh, a British writer, commentator and lecturer, an expert on contemporary ecclesial issues, with a particular interest in Latin America and the papacy of Francis. Ivereigh is lecturer in Contemporary Church History at Campion Hall, Oxford, a regular contributor to The Tablet and America and a sought-after speaker and retreat organizer. He is the author of two biographies of Pope Francis – one of which has also been published in Italian (Tempo di misericordia. Vita di Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 2014) and co-author, with Francis, of Let us dream. The path to a better future (2020).

The profound and illuminating experience of the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius, the reflections that - as a Jesuit and as pope - Francis has proposed in meetings, speeches and documents, and a fundamental theme such as that of belonging are at the basis of this book, organized as an eight-day journey to be lived individually or in groups: a time in which the Creator speaks directly to the hearts of his creatures, and Jesus comes to us, breaking our chains so that we can serve God and the world with love.

And today the world, in order to emerge from the grips of injustice and violence, of identity fundamentalisms and forced migration, of wars and the environmental crisis, needs first and foremost belonging. Belonging to the common humanity, which unites individuals and peoples in fraternity and in the shared care of creation. But at the root, first and foremost, that belonging to the Creator that brings us out of our selfishness towards new freedoms and possibilities.

The author writes in the last pages of the introduction: “In regenerating the bonds that unite us, in re-oxygenating ourselves to receive the gift that is our life and our world, we must first know and experience the Giver, who is already here, waiting for us. There is no better manual for this than the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, and there is no greater spiritual guide in our time than Francis, the world's first Jesuit pope. Having received so many gifts from both of them, my gift to you is to place you in their hands. May this be for you a blessed time”. To enrich the book, on the last pages, there is a user guide, a map of the retreat, some indications for “after the spiritual exercises” and a detailed indication of the bibliographical sources for each “stage”.

For information:

PAULINE Press Office: cell. 335 592 5006 - ufficiostampa@paoline.it

Press Office Vatican Publishing House: cell. 366 672 0498 - helene.destombes@spc.va