Mistagogía de los Ejercicios Espirituales en Laura Montoya

This chapter explores the vocational evolution of Laura Montoya in the twenty years that preceded the beginning of her missionary work among the indigenous people, with the hermeneutic magnifying glass of the Spiritual Exercises by Ignacio de Loyola, which she carried out from the beginning of her magisterium. The idea of becoming a cloistered Carmelite nun was forged in Laura’s mind from her very adolescence and she clung to it against all odds, that is, against the opinion of her confessors, of the Carmelite nuns themselves and even of her friend, the bishop of Medellín. The spiritual exercises that Laura performed annually as a teacher, and even on her own home, were the breeding ground of a painful vocational discernment that extended over time, not without consequences on her physical and psychological health. The process lived by St. Laura offers the research a significant case study of the itinerary of discernment and inner freedom that the exerciser experiences, until he disposes himself with complete indifference to the Will of God for his life.