Iñigo de Recalde de Loyola, youngest of thirteen (one of my
sources says eleven) children of Don Beltran Yáñez de
Loyola and Maria Sáenz de Licona y Balda, was born in 1491 in the
family castle in the Basque province of Gúipozcoa, in northeastern
Spain, near the French border. (ñ is pronounced "ny" in Spanish
and, I assume, in Basque, though this is just a guess--Basque has no
known connection with any other language.) As befitted a boy from an
aristocratic family, he spent some time as a page at the court of
Ferdinand and Isabella, the rulers of Spain. Here, by his later
testimony, he was involved in gambling, wenching, and duelling. He got
into trouble with the law, but escaped punishment because he was
technically a cleric. (This does not mean that he was destined for the
priesthood. In those days someone becoming a priest went through seven
steps: doorkeeper, reader, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, and
priest. The first four were called Minor Orders, and did not involve any
serious commitment, but they did make one technically a cleric, which was
useful if one got arrested for anything less than murder or treason.
Probably many young noblemen took the first step simply as a precaution.
Later the law extended the definition of "cleric" to anyone who could
read. See the Bio notes on Thomas à Becket, 29 December.) He then
entered military service, but fought in only one major battle, the
defense of Pamplona against the French in 1521. The professional solders
knew that their position was indefensible, and proposed to surrender.
Inigo (or Ignatius, to give him the Latin form of his name) had visions
of military glory, and urged his comrades to fight. He was promptly hit
in the leg by a cannon ball, the town surrendered anyway, and the French
sent him home on a stretcher.
The leg was badly set, and did not heal properly. It had to be rebroken and reset, and again it healed crookedly and left him with a permanent limp. Meanwhile, he was bedridden for many months, and spent the time reading. He asked for tales of knightly adventure, but instead was given a Life of Christ, written by a Carthusian monk. He read it, and his life was transformed. He went on pilgrimage to Montserrat (near Barcelona), where he hung up his sword over the altar, and then spent about a year at Manresa near Montserrat first working as a nurse and orderly in a hospital there, and then retiring to a cave to live as a hermit and study The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis (see 24 July), a book urging the Christian to take Christ as example, and seek daily to follow in His footsteps. It is probably during this year that he wrote his Spiritual Exercises, a manual of Christian prayer and meditation. He directs the reader to begin with an event in the life of Christ, and to imagine the scene in detail, to replay the episode in his mind like a movie script, and to try to feel as if he had himself witnessed the event, and then to use this experience as a motive for love, gratitude, and dedication to the service of God. The book is available today in hardcover and paperback. It has been much used by Christians of all varieties--John Wesley was enthusiastic about it. Ignatius then made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to see with his own eyes the scenes of Our Lord's life and death. He wanted to stay and preach to the muslims, but the Franciscans stationed there advised him that he needed an education in order to preach effectively.
Back in Spain, he spent ten years (1524-1534) getting an education at Barcelona, Alcalá, Salamanca, and Paris, beginning by going to elementary school to learn Latin grammar, and ending with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Paris. In Salamanca, he often preached to groups of people assembled by chance; but in those days a layman undertaking to preach on his own, without a license or supervision, was automatically suspected of heresy. Ignatius was twice imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition and questioned about his beliefs, an experience that made a deep impression on him. (He was finally acquitted, but forbidden to discuss religious matters for three years.) Today, his followers are aggressively proud of the fact that no member of their order has ever sat on an Inquisitorial tribunal. (It is possible that Ignatius already had doubts about the Inquisition. He was a Basque, and I am told that the Inquisition was never active in Biscay because the Basques, although thoroughly orthodox Christians, would not tolerate it.) In 1534, he and six fellow students formed a group who vowed to travel to Jerusalem and there preach the Gospel to the moslems. (The most famous of the six is Francis Xavier, who went to India and China as a missionary, and who is commemorated on 3 December.) This group later took the name, "The Society of Jesus," and were nicknamed "the Jesuits" by outsiders, a nickname that stuck.
In 1537 the Jesuits (now ten in number) gathered in Venice and (having found that renewed war in Palestine made journeying there impossible) offered their services to Pope Paul III. Ignatius and some of the others were ordained to the priesthood, and they were assigned various tasks. In 1540 they became a formal organization, with the usual monastic vows, plus a fourth vow of personal obedience to the Pope. In order to have more time for preaching and study the order abolished the practice (followed by almost all previous orders) of reciting the monastic Hours in community. Its chief goals were:
(A) renewal of the Roman Catholic Church through extensive education and the encouragement of frequent use of the sacraments,
(B) extensive missionary work in non-Christian countries, and
(C) a suitable response to the growing challenge of Protestantism.
In the remaining fifteen years of his life, Ignatius supervised the Jesuits from Rome and saw the order grow from ten men to a thousand. It was always active in missions, and became deeply involved in education, and in counselling those with difficult decisions to make, particularly rulers. The Order undertook to win back to the Roman obedience those areas that had recently become Protestant. Ignatius counselled his Jesuits (technically neither monks nor friars, but priests regular) to proceed with charity and moderation, "without hard words or contempt for people's errors." He died suddenly on 31 July 1556. His writing include the following prayer:
Teach us, good Lord, to serve thee as thou deservest;
To give, and not to count the cost,
to fight, and not to heed the wounds,
to toil, and not to seek for rest,
to labor, and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do thy will.
Note: For a short (455 lines) article on the Jesuit order (how it is organized, how its members are trained, its activities, its goals, its controversies, its critics), send the message Get Bio Jul to the address LISTSERV@ASU.EDU and read the last 455 lines of the document you get back, which is the Bio articles for July, and is about 2832 lines long.
O God, by whose grace thy servant Ignatius, enkindled with the Fire of thy love, became a burning and a shining light in thy Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and may ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.
Almighty God, from whom all good things come, who didst call Ignatius of Loyola to the service of thy Divine majesty and to find thee in all things: Inspired by his example and strengthened by his companionship, may we labor without counting the cost and seek no reward other than knowing that we do thy will; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.
O God, by whose grace your servant Ignatius, enkindled with the Fire of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and may ever walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Almighty God, from whom all good things come, who called Ignatius of Loyola to the service of your Divine majesty and to find you in all things: Inspired by his example and strengthened by his companionship, may we labor without counting the cost and seek no reward other than knowing that we do your will; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.
Psalm 34:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:31--1:11
Luke 9:57-62 (St3)