Feast day: July 31
St. Ignatius of Loyola
Vain Basque soldier whose leg was shattered by a cannonball; reading saints' lives in recovery converted him, and his Spiritual Exercises converted the world.
Ignatius was born in 1491 at the castle of Loyola in the Basque country of Spain, the youngest of many children, and grew up a courtier and soldier hungry for honor and renown. His worldly career ended at the siege of Pamplona in 1521, when a French cannonball shattered his leg. During the long, painful convalescence that followed, the only books in the castle were a life of Christ and a collection of saints' lives.
Reading them, he noticed something that changed everything: daydreams of worldly glory left him empty, while thoughts of imitating St. Francis and St. Dominic left him with a lasting peace. From this attention to the movements of his own heart grew his classic 'Spiritual Exercises,' a school of prayer and discernment still used the world over. He laid his sword before the altar of Our Lady at Montserrat, then spent months in prayer and penance at the nearby town of Manresa, where he received deep mystical graces.
Convinced he must help souls, the former soldier went back to school among boys to learn Latin, and eventually to the University of Paris. There he gathered companions — among them Francis Xavier and Peter Faber — who in 1534 bound themselves by vows at Montmartre. Offering their service to the pope, they were approved in 1540 as the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, marked by obedience, learning, and readiness to go anywhere for the good of souls.
As the first superior general, Ignatius governed the rapidly growing order from Rome, writing its Constitutions and thousands of letters, and launching the schools and missions that would make the Jesuits a force across the world. His motto was to do all things 'for the greater glory of God.' He died in 1556, was canonized in 1622, and is the patron of retreats and spiritual exercises.
Stuck in bed, he wanted romance novels; the castle only had a life of Christ and the saints. The boredom of one knight became the Jesuit order.
“Go forth and set the world on fire.”
— St. Ignatius of Loyola
Image: AnonymousUnknown author (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/07639c.htm
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