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Ignatius Loyola Biography

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IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Saint (1491 or 1495-1556). The founder of the Jesuits. Iñigo Lopez de Recalde was the youngest of 13 children, of a noble family. He is usually said to have been born on Christmas night, 1491, but the Bollandists and Polanco are authority for the change to 1495. He was born in the ancestral castle of Loyola, near Azpeitía, in the Basque Provinces, not far from the French frontier. At 14, after a scanty education, he became a page at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic. Court life grew distasteful after some years, however, and he became a soldier under his relative, the Duke of Najera, in 1517. He fought bravely against the Navarrese, the Moors, the Portuguese, and the French. He had reached the rank of captain when, while directing the defense of Pamplona against the French in the war between Francis I and Charles V, he was wounded severely, May 20, 1521. He was taken prisoner and conveyed to the castle of Loyola. As a result of the wound, one leg was badly deformed. This would have been very unsightly in the fashionable hose of the day, and he bade the surgeon reduce the deformity at any cost. The leg was rebroken, and he bore the operation and consequent suffering without complaint. His convalescence was prolonged, and time hung heavily on his hands. He asked for some romances of knight-errantry then popular, but there were none in the castle. Instead they brought him a translation of Ludolf of Saxony's life of Christ, and some lives of the saints. Ignatius' life as a soldier had been the careless and gay one of an officer. For want of anything better to do, however, he read and reread these pious books. The spiritual achievements of St. Francis and St. Dominic came to replace the deeds of his knightly heroes in his imagination. He began to see visions, and his family grew alarmed lest he should rashly surrender his career for a life of religion: As soon as he was able he went to the shrine of the Virgin at Montserrat, where, after a confession of his whole life on the vigil of the Annunciation, March 24, 1522, he hung up his arms as a votive offering and a symbol of his renunciation of his military career and of his entire devotion henceforth to the spiritual warfare, gave away his rich clothing, and went to the neighboring town of Manresa, where he served the sick and poor in the hospital. He lived in a cave, and his austerity finally impaired his health, though it was at this time that his Spiritual Exercises, from which he drew great spiritual strength, took form in his mind. Thus began a life of extreme asceticism, which, though it often endangered his health, yielded to his mystical mind ecstatic experiences. After this he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and would have stayed at Jerusalem to spread the gospel among the infidels, but was forbidden by the local authorities. He returned to Barcelona in 1524. Realizing now that to do good he must have more knowledge, he began, at the age of 33, the rudiments of grammar in a public school beside boys. After two, years he went to the new University of Alcalá and later to Salamanca. Because of public religious teaching with what was thought insufficient education, he incurred the censure of ecclesiastical authorities at both places. In 1528 he repaired to Paris to continue his studies. He was robbed by a companion and had to lodge in a hospital, where he did menial work for his support while attending the university. During his summer vacations he visited Spanish merchants in Antwerp, Bruges, and London so as to obtain money to continue his studies. During his student years he had no resources but the charity of the faithful. His earlier companions did not all remain his followers, but at Paris he formed a pious confraternity, out of which developed later the Society of Jesus. (See Jesuits.) Most of these were men of unusual ability. One became later the great Apostle of the Indies, Francis Xavier, and three, Lainez, Salmeron, and Lejay, became the leading theological advisers to the Council of Trent. One of the others, Faber, received the honors of beatification from the Church. In the crypt of the church of the Martyrs, on Montmartre, on the Feast of the Assumption, Aug, 15, 1534, the little band took their vows. At first their intention was to evangelize Palestine. They made their way to Venice for this purpose; but the war between the Christians and the Turks closed the way to the Holy Land, so they resolved to offer themselves to the Pope for any service he might assign. Paul III received them with great kindness. The pulpits of churches in various Italian towns were assigned to them, and their burning discourses and saintly lives soon attracted attention. No other of them was so effective as Ignatius himself, who spoke as the plain, blunt, but intensely earnest soldier. In 1539 Ignatius asked for papal approbation of his order. In spite of opposition to the erection of another religious order in the Church, the Pope read the draft of the Constitutions, and said, "The finger of God is here." While occupied with his constantly growing society, of which he was the superior, Ignatius found much to do besides its direction and the writings of the Constitutions. Though a Spaniard, he devoted himself to the care of the Jewish converts and secured the correction of many abuses in the treatment of those who wished to remain orthodox Jews. He founded a house for fallen women and was not ashamed to be seen conducting them to it through the streets. He tried to prevent the occasions of their fall by providing a home for friendless girls. He established orphan asylums for boys and girls. The influence he acquired can be understood from the fact that he was able to end a dispute between the Pope and John III of Portugal that threatened serious harm to religion at the moment, and another between the citizens of Tivoli and their ruler, Margaret of Austria.

His writings consist only of the Constitutions and rules of the Society of Jesus, his Letters, and the Exercitia Spiritualia. This last little book of scarcely 100 duodecimo pages has proved one of the most influential works ever written. In 1552 he began to teach his spiritual exercises to his companions, and the earliest extant text of their publication dates from 1541. From the very beginning this work formed the basis of the spiritual training of the Jesuits themselves and the mold in which their retreats and missions to the people were cast. It has come to be the acknowledged model after which the missions and retreats given by most of the other religious orders of the Roman Catholic church are conducted. Three things are treated of particularly in the book: the service of Jesus Christ, placed above all that the kings of the earth can offer; the discernment of spirits; and finally the choice of a state of life. It was this book that accomplished the reforms the Jesuits effected. The Constitutions of the Jesuits are entirely the expressions of Ignatius’ ideas. They have been but slightly modified, never in any essential, by successive General Congregations. It is often said that Ignatius founded the Jesuits to counteract the effects of the German Reformation, but there is good authority for believing that when Ignatius conceived the idea of his order he had not even heard the name of Luther. Even more than a decade later, he seems to have paid little heed to the religious movements in Europe, especially in Germany. One year before his death, in 1555, the society comprised eight provinces, divided as follows: Italy, two; Spain, three; Portugal, one; Brazil, one; India and Japan one. In Germany there were but two residences, Cologne and Vienna. He died in Rome, July 31, 1556. He was beatified in 1609 and canonized in 1622.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 754-755.