Iñigo Lopez de Loyola was born in 1491; Loyola was the name of his ancestors'
manor house and farmland in northern Spain, the Basque country. The surnames of
the Basques derived from the house or estate to which they belonged. Iñigo
was his given name; he later changed it to Ignatius, probably out of admiration
for the great Christian martyr Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius is not, as many suppose,
a translation of the name Iñigo to another language.
His family was large and wealthy. Iñigo and his brothers were, in various
capacities, in service to the king of Castile. The young Iñigo might best
be described as a courtier; some writers refer to him as a knight. His earliest
biographer, Ribandeneira, describes him as "a lively and trim young man, very
fond of court dress and good living."
Iñigo, although never a full-time professional soldier, is often referred
to as the Soldier Saint. He was seriously wounded by the French at Pamplona in
May of 1521 when a cannonball shattered his right leg and wounded his left. Immediate
medical attention was crude, hasty, and obviously ineffective; he was sent home
on a litter to the castle of his ancestors. The bones, Iñigo writes in
his third-person Autobiography, "either because they had been badly
set or because the jogging of the journey had displaced them, would not heal.
Again he went through this butchery [a reference to the repeat surgery] in which,
as in all the others that he suffered before or after he uttered not a word nor
showed any sign of pain other than the tight clenching of fists." During
a long recuperation, the future saint had what he describe as his first reasoning,
his first reflective experience, on the things of God....
Upon recovery from his wounds and related illness, Iñigo resolved to
follow Christ. He made his way to the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat in Spain,
sought out a confessor, and unburdened his soul in a three-day general confession.
Then he hung up his sword and dagger -- emblems of a swashbuckling past -- at
the famous Montserrat Marian Shrine of the Black Virgin.... His intention, according
to a recent historical account, was "to clothe himself there with the arms of
his new spiritual warfare, in the fashion of young knights who entered upon the
service of earthly warfare."
He left Montserrat intending to go directly to Barcelona to board a ship for
the Holy Land to visit -- as he had resolved to do during his recuperation- the
places made holy by the footprints and eventually the blood of Jesus. But he delayed
for eleven months in the village of Manresa (another famous place name in Jesuit
history), about twenty miles from Montserrat, where he experienced interior trials
as well as divine illuminations. At Manresa, he underwent a spiritual transformation,
an experience he would later draw upon in producing his Spiritual Exercises,
a handbook intended to serve as an outline for a month long retreat. He would
later invite Fancies Xavier and other individuals of "magnanimity and generosity"
to make the Exercises, which were designed to help them, by God's grace, become
even more generous. In the introduction to his handbook, Ignatius writes, "We
call Spiritual Exercises every way of preparing and disposing the soul to rid
itself of all inordinate attachments, and, after their removal, of seeking and
finding the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our
soul" (spEx, 1). The salvation of others -- what Ignatius constantly refers
to in later apostolic planning as the "help of souls," or service --
was never far from his thoughts. But the beginning experience of the Exercises
focuses on the cultivation, by God's action in the soul, of a fuller freedom and
closer union with God on the part of the one who would be, in the Ignatian mode,
a follower of Christ. Ignatius had a vision, a commitment, and a pattern of living
that eventually became known worldwide as the Jesuit way of life. Every Jesuit
school, college, and university has been touched by the influence.
Several short paragraphs at the beginning of the book constitute what Ignatius
calls the "First Principle of Foundation" of the Spiritual Exercises.
These words have been pondered often and deeply by every Jesuit throughout his
Jesuit life. They help to explain why Jesuits do what they do, including establishing
the institutions that bear the name Loyola. These words can serve as a
personal mission statement for those who see life and faith from a Jesuit perspective.
Here is what Ignatius would say to a young graduate or anyone associating him-
or herself with the Jesuit work:
You are created to praise, reverence, and serve God your Lord, and by this
means to save your soul.
The other things on the face of the earth are created for you to help you in
attaining the end for which you are created.
Hence, you are to make use of them in as far as they help you in the attainment
of your end, and you must rid yourself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance
to you.
Therefore, you must make yourself indifferent to all created things, as far
as you are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition. Consequently,
as far as you are concerned, you should not prefer health to sickness, riches
to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. The same holds for
all other things.
Your one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for
which you are created. (spEx, 23)
It takes spiritual maturity to catch the Ignatian vision, to see "First Principle
and Foundation" as a basis for living, as a focus that helps you find God and
God's love in all things. It takes additional spiritual maturity to be willing
to make your own the famous Ignatian prayer for generosity; "Dear Lord, teach
me to be generous; teach me to serve you as you deserve to be served; 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 I am doing your will, O God."
The man who was Loyola had a tendency to see life as a struggle between the
forces of good and the forces of evil. He was a mystic who saw the world from
God's point of view. He founded his religious order -- the Jesuits -- for like-minded
men called, as he was, to be contemplatives in action. Ignatius and his first
companions committed themselves "to travel anywhere in the world where there
is hope of God's greater glory and the good of souls." The phrase God's
greater glory appears on the logo, the coat of arms, of many Jesuit institutions
and organizations: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Ignatius understood that the
greater glory of God involves a greater, more generous, and selfless service to
others. For Ignatius, the help of souls meant the help of bodies too. Just as
Mother Teresa of Calcutta did in the late twentieth century, he always sent his
men to minister in hospitals, care for the poor, protect prostitutes and marginated
people, and instruct unsophisticated children in religion.
Graduates leaving Jesuits campuses today are encourage not to leave that spirit
behind. In fact, they are often urged to take it upon themselves to learn more
about the man and his vision. There are good biographies to be read. There are
the Spiritual Exercises to be made (experienced, not read) at a Jesuit retreat
house. ... Moreover, if a person catches the Ignatian vision, the spirit of the
man who was Loyola, he or she may be moved to pray from time to time as Ignatius
prayed at the commencement of his apostolic life:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my
entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given it all to me. To you,
Lord, I return it. All of it is yours; dispose of it wholly according to your
will. Give me only your love and your grace, and that will be enough for me.
Excerpted from Jesuit Saturdays: Sharing the Ignatian Spirit with Lay Colleagues
and Friends by William J. Byron, S.J. (Loyola Press 2000). Reprinted with permission
of Loyola Press. To order copies of this book, call 1-800-621-1008 or visit Loyola
Press.
