It was on this date in 1606 that St. Nicholas Owen died after a week of ghastly torture. His crime: decades of hiding Catholic priests from government persecution. Owen was not a priest himself, but a carpenter, and a lay brother of the Society of Jesus. As such, he constructed hiding places all across England where priest could take refuge and escape persecution. Hundreds of lives were saved. St. Nicholas Owen did not have a “normal” course of Jesuit formation. All of his Jesuit training was secret, including his 30-day retreat. He could not have gone off to a secluded retreat house for 30 days of spiritual exercises as most novices do. His superiors had to make adaptations for him.
St. Ignatius Loyola, in composing his Spiritual Exercises, considered that adaptations were a necessary part of the retreat. There would be no one “standard” version of the Ignatius’ exercises to which all retreatants must accommodate themselves. Rather, the retreat would be adjusted to fit the individual.