Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Theologian

• Born: 1491
• Birthplace: Loyola, Guipúzcoa Province, Castile (now in Spain)
• Died: July 31, 1556
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

Spanish religious leader

Ignatius of Loyola, a dynamic religious leader whose life and writings strongly influenced his times, was the founder of the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits. His religious order was particularly notable in the field of education.

Area of Achievement Religion and theology, education

Early Life

The youngest son of a family known for its prowess in war, Ignatius (ihg-NAY-shyuhs) was given as an infant into the care of a nearby farm woman. During his childhood and youth, Ignatius was thus divided between his father’s house, Casa Torre, and his foster mother’s home, giving him a view of life from two sides that of the rulers and that of the ruled. Of Basque descent, the Loyola family was deeply religious. Ignatius’s father, Don Beltram, had close connections with the king for services rendered and received many privileges, both lay and clerical, in return. He had justifiably high aspirations for all his children.

Ignatius spent his early teens mostly at Casa Torre, taking school lessons from the village priest. At the age of sixteen, he was taken as a page into the house of Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, a family relative who was treasurer of Castile and royal major domo at the court. In his service, Ignatius learned to sing, dance, and play musical instruments skills he retained for the remainder of his life. For ten years, he lived as a courtier, traveling with his master and the royal court, visiting all the towns of Castile. Thoroughly trained in formal manners and caught up in court life, Ignatius spent much time reading romances, tales featuring ghosts, dragons, princesses, and heroes engaged in impossible adventures.

On the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, Juan Velázquez lost most of his estates and his position at court. He died in 1517, and a bereft Ignatius went to Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, to enlist in the viceroy’s army, having decided to become a career soldier. From 1517 to 1521, a captain in the service of the duke of Najera, Ignatius fought the French, who were attempting to seize all Navarre by capturing the strategic city of Pamplona. In 1520, Ignatius participated in its defense, and in a fierce battle lasting six hours, he was struck by a cannon ball and suffered a broken right leg. The victorious French treated him well, returning him to Casa Torre for recuperation.

During his convalescence, a bored Ignatius, lacking his usual romances, read a life of Christ and a book on the lives of the saints. He was attracted by the sanctity of Christ and Christ’s saints and wanted to imitate their virtues. Meditating on his past and on the future, he felt a need to do penance, which would culminate in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On recovery, he set about carrying out this goal.

Life’s Work

In the spring of 1522, Ignatius visited Montserrat, the site of a famous shrine to the Black Virgin. From there, he went to Manresa, where he stayed about a year, undertaking a program of prayer and penance. During this period, Ignatius first conceived the idea of founding a “spiritual militia” for the service of the Church. At Manresa, he began writing his Ejercicios espirituales (1548; The Spiritual Exercises, 1736), for the use of directors of spiritual retreats. This famous book gives methods of freeing the soul to seek and to find the will of God. The practitioner goes through stages of meditation, examination of conscience, and methods of prayer; the exercises require thirty days to be completed. These exercises remain a vital part of the life of Jesuits.

From Manresa, Ignatius went to Barcelona in 1523, a stopover before continuing on to Rome. While in Barcelona, he occupied himself in prayer and good works, visiting hospitals and prisons. In March of 1523, he left for Rome, where he received Pope Adrian VI’s blessing on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Leaving Venice, he was delayed for two months before finally sailing for Palestine. Ignatius and his fellow pilgrims arrived at Jerusalem in September, 1523, to be guided by Franciscan friars in their visits to the Holy Places. Although he wanted to stay permanently, converting the Muslims, Ignatius was refused permission by the Franciscan superiors. The pilgrims left Jerusalem and were back in Italy in October, 1523. Ignatius returned to Barcelona, arriving in March, 1524.

Wealthy friends paid for Ignatius’s studies at the University of Barcelona, where he studied grammar. In 1526, he switched to Acalá University, studying logic, theology, and physics. Between classes, Ignatius begged alms for the poor and taught The Spiritual Exercises to any willing pupils. He gathered four like-minded companions about him and they went throughout the city teaching Christian doctrine. Thus were sown the seeds of the Society of Jesus.

In 1528, leaving his companions to follow at a later date, Ignatius went to France to attend the University of Paris. Dominican professors at both Barcelona and Salamanca judged him not ready to be a valid preacher. Needing a good foundation in systematic learning, Ignatius spent the next years studying Latin grammar, classical texts, theology, and philosophy. He obtained his licentiate in March, 1533, and his master’s degree in 1534. In addition to his studies, Ignatius taught The Spiritual Exercises to fellow students. Among these was a roommate from Navarre, Francis Xavier, whom Ignatius eventually won to his way of life and who was destined to be the glory of Jesuit missionary work. By 1534, Ignatius had nine companions who agreed to unite in any needed spiritual enterprise.

The band of ten went to Rome in 1537, seeking the pope’s approval of their new order. In 1539, Pope Paul III gave verbal approval to the society, and in September, 1540, they were granted canonical approval. That June, Ignatius and seven of his companions were ordained priests. They settled in Rome, living on alms and preaching sermons, catechizing children, and attending the sick.

Ignatius intended his Society of Jesus to be at the service of the pope and, thereby, of the universal church. The Renaissance church was in need of reform, being secularized by the prevailing educational and cultural milieu. Ignatius’s society took a vow to obey the pope in all things and to go where and when he indicated a need for their services. In 1540, the first Jesuits were sent to the foreign missions. Two of them were chosen to work in India, one being Francis Xavier. From Goa, Xavier traveled to Japan, arriving in 1549. Later, he attempted to work in China but died before that desire could be fulfilled (1553). Jesuits fanned out all over the globe, with a concentration in Europe.

Ignatius and his society focused on education as the chief tool for reform within the Church, establishing many secondary schools and universities. Educated laypeople were needed to spread the Christian spirit. Martin Luther’s teachings were widespread in Europe in the sixteenth century, and Ignatius’s society was in the vanguard of the Church’s Counter-Reformation.

In 1541, Ignatius was elected the first general of the Society of Jesus head for life. He began drafting the constitutions for the society, setting a solid foundation and structure on which his followers could build. The constitutions set down the qualities needed for the Jesuit general, among them a holy life, prayerfulness, humility, charity, and circumspection. There were also rules for admitting or expelling members, for the examination or formation of novices, and regulations for prayers. With some adaptation, The Spiritual Exercises and constitutions remain basic to Jesuit life.

In 1553, pressed by his friends, Ignatius began narrating his autobiography, completing it in early 1555. He spent the last year of his life overseeing the work of his far-flung order, which, by that time numbered about one thousand members. Ignatius died in 1556, confident that his society was fulfilling his hopes for it, revitalizing the spiritual life of the Church.

Significance

Although Saint Ignatius of Loyola did not found his society expressly to combat the Protestant Reformation, his Jesuits are credited by his contemporaries and by later historians with having stemmed its tide. They were instrumental in winning back many who had fallen away from the Church and in opening vast new territories to the Church (for example, the Indies, China, Japan, South America, and North America).

A contemporary of such giants as Sir Thomas More, Desiderius Erasmus, Niccolò Machiavelli, Ferdinand Magellan, Michelangelo, Martin Luther, and the Tudors, Ignatius helped train and form men who became formidable theologians, lawyers, scientists, and mathematicians and who would be at home not only in the courts of European and Asian princes but also with Native Americans. The society’s ultimate goal always remained the greater glory of God.

Because of strong criticism by opponents chiefly within the Church the Jesuit Order was suppressed in 1773 by Clement XIV. It dwindled in number but not in fervor, and on formal restoration in 1814, under Pius VII, it quickly regained its former vitality. Friends and foes alike acknowledge the tremendous effect of the Society of Jesus on the world, then and now. In 1622, the Catholic Church gave its highest seal of approval to Ignatius Loyola, canonizing him a saint.

Bibliography

Donnelly, John Patrick. Ignatius of Loyola: Founder of the Jesuits. New York: Longman, 2004. A thorough survey of Ignatius’s life, work, and ideas; some chapters deal with biographical events while others focus on Ignatius’s thought on a particular issue, such as education or women. Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographic references, glossary, and index.

Green, John D. A Strange Tongue: Tradition, Language, and the Appropriation of Mystical Experience in Late Fourteenth-Century England and Sixteenth-Century Spain. Dudley, Mass.: Peeters, 2002. A study of the Christian mystical notion of the “discernment of spirits,” that is, the recognition of authentically divine inward promptings or stirrings, in the writings of St. John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola, Julian of Norwich, and Walter Hilton. Includes bibliographic references.

Lonsdale, David. Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality. Rev. ed. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2000. This classic introduction to Ignatius’s spiritual theology and its applicability to contemporary life has been expanded to include a more thorough discussion of gender, and a consideration of the nature and meaning of the increase in modern interest in Ignatius. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Loyola, Ignatius. The Autobiography of Saint Ignatius Loyola. Edited by John C. Olin. Translated by Joseph F. O’Callaghan. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Reprint. New York: Fordham Univerity Press, 1992. Contains an informative introduction. Sets the autobiography in the context of its time and gives a brief biography of Ignatius. The preface is by Father Luis Goncalves da Camara, to whom Ignatius narrated his life story. Contains reproductions of illustrations from a work published in Rome in 1609, footnotes expanding on the text, and appendices. Contains a short annotated bibliography.

Maynard, Theodore. Saint Ignatius and the Jesuits. New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1956. Examines the life of Ignatius in eight chapters, briefly, and gives the remaining seven to an analysis of the Jesuit Order and its experiences in the following centuries. Focuses on missionary activities, the suppression of the order, Jesuit education, and corporate achievement. Defends and admires the Society of Jesus. Contains a bibliography and an index.

Mitchell, David. The Jesuits. New York: Franklin Watts, 1981. A balanced, critical but respectful treatment of Ignatius and his Jesuits. Covers beginnings to the late 1970’s. Contains several illustrations. Appendices include a list of the generals and general congregations, common words used with reference to Jesuits, and a list of popes. Contains an extensive bibliography and a detailed index.

Purcell, Mary. The First Jesuit. Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1957. Based on contemporary evidence: the writings of Saint Ignatius and records of the first companions and fathers of the first generation of the Society of Jesus. Contains three appendices, a source list, notes, and an index.

Ravier, André, S. J. Ignatius Loyola and the Founding of the Society of Jesus. Translated by Joan Maura and Carson Daly. San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatian Press, 1987. An interpretation of Ignatius and his society. Begins with a chronology of Ignatius and his followers’ activities; ends with an analysis of the message and mission of Ignatius. Based on Ignatius’s correspondence and his autobiography, letters of some of his close collaborators, and several volumes of the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesus. Contains a bibliography(primarily French sources) and an index.

Richter, Friedrich. Martin Luther and Ignatius Loyola, Spokesmen for Two Worlds of Belief. Translated by Leonard F. Zwinger. Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1960. A comparison/contrast of the careers of Luther and Ignatius. Analysis of Protestant and Catholic thought and teachings. No bibliography, but contains a brief index.

Tylenda, Joseph N., ed. and trans. A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1985. A brief biography of Ignatius in the introduction. Contains a commentary on each page to flesh out allusions in the text. Contains appendices, select bibliography, and notes for each chapter.

Related article in Great Events from History: The Renaissance & Early Modern Era

August 15, 1534: Founding of the Jesuit Order; 1550’s-c. 1600: Educational Reforms in Europe.