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- A Higher Calling
- Learning to Serve God
- Helping Others
St. Ignatius Found God During a Long Period of Downtime.
Ignatius was christened Inigo de Onaz y Loyola, the youngest son
of 11 children, born to a family of lesser Basque nobility. During
a French assault on the ramparts of Pamplona, he was critically
wounded. One of his legs was shattered and, moreover, all of his
early plan crumbled. His medieval sense of honor, his dreams of
great military exploits, and his courtly love for a high Spanish
princess were all gone. One cannonball punctuated what seemed to
be a daring and romantic career.
A Higher Calling
When he was able to walk again, Ignatius set out for the Benedictine
Monastery of Montserrat where he exchanged his sword and gentleman’s
clothes for sandals and pilgrim sacking. He spent nearly a year
in the mountain town of Manresa, helping nuns care for the sick
in a local hospital and withdrawing to a small cave much of the
day to meditate and do severe penance for his past sins. The result
was an immense breakthrough to enlightenment. He made notes of his
mystical experiences and formulated them into a book simply titled,
“Spiritual Exercises,” so that others might go through
the same phases of prayer with like results.
Learning to Serve God
To develop his talents, Ignatius knew he needed a more complete
education. He could read and write, but knew no Latin. So at the
age of 33, he entered a primary school in Barcelona to prepare himself
for sources at the University of Alcala. However, his speaking in
public about complicated religious topics without an education worried
the Spanish Inquisitors and he was twice jailed for brief periods.
These interruptions in his rigorous course of studies made things
even more difficult, so he moved to Paris to complete his academic
work. Along with his roommates, Ignatius attracted a handful of
other companions by his personality and his exercises for spiritual
improvement. One by one, as they were ready, he directed them through
the Spiritual Exercises. These men were talented, sensitive, idealistic
young men anxious to do something great for God. The future missionary
to Asia, St. Francis Xavier, was among them.
Helping Others
In 1534, the small band pledged themselves to chastity, poverty
and a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to convert the non-believers.
But wars around the Mediterranean postponed their passage from Venice
again and again, so they finally returned to Rome and presented
themselves to the Pope. In a short time, they were preaching, teaching,
hearing confessions, giving the Spiritual Exercises, working in
hospitals and feeding the victims of the plague. Top
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