Saint Ignatius Loyola, Priest and Founder of the Society of Jesus – Readings

Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20 or 30:10-14; 1 Corinthians 10:31—11:1; Luke 9:18-25 or Matthew 8:18-27 or John 1:35-42

Three Gospel readings are suggested for today’s feast. Each of them reflects some of the spirituality of the Spiritual Exercises. The first, from Luke, is his version of Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah, followed by the first prediction of his suffering, death and resurrection and, finally, the conditions for following Jesus. In the last verse of this text occur the words:

For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?

It is said that this text was proposed by Ignatius to Francis Xavier, who at the time was bent on a career of material success. After doing the Spiritual Exercises under Ignatius, Francis would devote himself to the Way of the Gospel and become an outstanding missionary, covering huge territories of Asia. It is for us, too, to hear those words of Jesus and reflect on the values that govern our lives.

The second proposed passage is from Matthew. It is about two people who wanted to become disciples of Jesus. The first, a scribe, said he would follow Jesus wherever he went. Jesus replied:

Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

It is clear that the man had to realise that to be a follower of Jesus, he had to be ready to let go of absolutely everything. Another person, who seems to be already a disciple, says:

Lord, first let me go and bury my father.

To which Jesus replies:

Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.

It seems a severe answer, but the message is the same. It is possible, too, that the man’s father was not yet dead, but he wanted to be there when it happened. For Jesus, the service of God is always in the now. Ignatius expressed this teaching by his emphasis on ‘indifference’, a total openness to the will of God without expressing any preference one way or another.

The third text is from the Gospel of John. John the Baptist is with two of his disciples and, as Jesus walks by, John says,

Look, here is the Lamb of God!

The two disciples, one of whom was Andrew, begin walking behind Jesus. Jesus turns and asks them:

What are you looking for?

They reply with a question of their own:

Rabbi…where are you staying?

And Jesus answers:

Come and see.

So they went and saw where he stayed. A simple dialogue, but full of meaning.

It is a dialogue that each one of us can have with Jesus. If he asks me, “What are you looking for?”, how will I answer? My answer will say a lot about where I am in my relationship with Jesus. And I can also ask, “Where are you staying?” Where do I go to find Jesus? Where in my life is he to be found? Finally, there is the invitation “Come and see”. Knowing Jesus is not a question of doctrines and deep theology. It is a matter of a personal experience of Jesus in my life. This is the purpose of the Spiritual Exercises—to know Jesus more clearly, to love him more dearly and to follow him more nearly.

Two texts from the Book of Deuteronomy are suggested for the First Reading. They are both from Chapter 30. We read:

If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

The commandments mentioned here, of course, are the Law of Moses, but we will rather look at the law of love that Jesus taught. Jesuits, too, will find God’s law expressed in the Constitutions of their Society and in the wishes of their superiors, in whom they recognise the voice of God. For a congregation whose members were often scattered far and wide and living very much on their own, obedience was very important as a bond joining them all together.

The Second Reading is from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. It reflects the motto of the Jesuits:

…whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

And the passage ends:

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

The work of Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, was much loved by Ignatius. And the goal of doing the Spiritual Exercises is to become as like to Christ as possible.

There is also a beautiful prayer at the beginning of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (1:3-10) which speaks of how each one of us has been chosen by God long before we came into existence. In it he says:

He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (Eph 1:5)

Ignatius would have been very much aware of how God worked in his life. Step by step, God brought him from the life of a rather worldly soldier to a hermit’s life, and eventually to become the leader of an apostolic group devoted to the spread of the Kingdom and God’s greater glory. Perhaps we too can see God acting in our lives at different stages and see how he has brought us to situations of which we had never dreamt—and how he has lavished his gifts on us through the people we have encountered and experiences we have had.

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Saint Ignatius Loyola, Priest and Founder of the Society of Jesus

Ignatius of Loyola (original name Inigo), born in 1491, was the youngest of eleven children of a Basque nobleman and was destined to become a soldier. During a battle against the French he was wounded at the siege of Pamplona in 1521. His broken leg was badly set and, very conscious of his appearance, he insisted that it be broken again and re-set.

However, the surgery was not well done and Ignatius was left with a limp for the rest of his life. During his long period of convalescence he was not able to get books about the knightly romances he craved and had to settle for a book about the life of Christ and stories of saints, the only books available in the family castle. However, these books had a deep effect on him, and the heroism he now dreamed of was that of saints like Francis of Assisi and Dominic. He pledged his loyalty to the Mother of God by visiting her shrine at the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia and then began a year of prayer and penance in the cave at Manresa not far away. Here he experienced both desolation and consolation and began to learn the causes for each. This led to the compiling of his classic, the Spiritual Exercises. In 1523, he fulfilled a dream by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, begging his way like many before him. However, the Franciscans there persuaded him to give up his intention of converting Muslims, and he returned to Spain without a clear plan of what to do next.

He decided that he needed to do some studies if he was to be an effective evangeliser. He began, at the age of 30, by sitting down with schoolboys to learn Latin. He went on to Barcelona, Alcala, Salamanca and finally to the University of Paris. In Paris he studied philosophy for three years and graduated in 1534 as a master of arts. All this time he led a life of austerity and, though still a layman, gave spiritual direction, especially to women. In Spain he spent some time in prison, suspected of heresy.

As a student in Paris he gathered six disciples, to whom he gave the Spiritual Exercises. They then made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience at the Chapel of St Denis in Montmartre, promising to serve the Church either by preaching the gospel in the Holy Land, or else at the exclusive service of the pope. In 1537, they met in Venice, but were unable to continue on to the Holy Land, so they went on to Rome to ask the pope to recognise them as a religious community.

They were now all priests and had made an extra vow of special obedience to the pope. Their main priorities were the education of the young and going on missionary enterprises. They also were the first religious congregation to drop the communal recitation of the Divine Office so as to increase their freedom and mobility for apostolic works. In 1540, the new congregation, with the name Society of Jesus, got papal approval. Ignatius was unanimously, though against his will, elected as the first General and would hold the post for the rest of his life.

He would also remain in Rome from where he directed the works of the Society. Other works he personally was involved in were houses for converted Jews and shelters for prostitutes. Given that so many members were scattered to so many places and often working on their own, obedience to the aims of the Society became very important for maintaining unity. It also explains the long letters which members on the missions regularly sent back to Rome to report on what they were doing. Among the most famous of these were the letters of St Francis Xavier and of the missionaries working in China and North America.

A tighter organisation was also called for because of the crisis situation caused in Europe by the Reformation. Peter Canisius was one of the leaders of the Counter-Reformation, as were the many schools started by the Society. In missionary work, Francis Xavier was the pioneer with an astonishing career. He was followed by missionaries in India, China, Ethiopia, Latin America and North America. Spiritual direction, which was to complete rather than replace the work of parish priests, was undertaken by the Society. Ignatius, who had been plagued by chronic stomach problems due to the austere excesses in his younger years, died suddenly on 31 July, 1556. By then the Jesuits numbered over 1,000 members in nine European provinces, besides those working in foreign missions.

He was canonized with Francis Xavier on 12 March, 1622 and declared Patron of Spiritual Exercises and Retreats by Pope Pius XI.

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