The Ministry of Spiritual Excercises in Uganda

Abstract

Retreat work has been a main concern of the Maltese Jesuits as soon as they arrived in Uganda in 1969. But usually it remained  a complementary ministry. as most of them were primarily involved in other apostolates. With the arrival since 1987, of Jesuits from the Wisconsin Province and other Provinces of the U.S.A., the Ministry of the Exercises became for some of them the first and main apostolate. Many possibilities were offered by the church in Uganda to develop and diversify this work. If the guidance of the exercises is mainly founded upon the Scripture and the Ignatian methods and spirituality, also other Western methods are integrated and not least valuable elements of the African tradition in matters of the concept of God, techniques of storytelling, use of proverbs, traditional counseling, problem solving and reconciliation.