The Spiritual Journey of Ignatius of Loyola: 1491
- 1540
(This narration of the life of Ignatius
is based on A Pilgrim's Testament, an autobiography
dictated to a fellow Jesuit three years before he died.
In speaking, Ignatius consistently referred to himself
in the third person.)
Loyola to Montserrat
Ignatius was a minor nobleman, born
in 1491 in the family castle of Loyola in the Basque
country and brought up as a knight in the courts of
Spain. In his autobiography he sums up the first twenty-six
years of his life in one sentence: "he was a
man given to the follies of the world; and what he
enjoyed most was warlike sport, with a great and foolish
desire to win fame". The desire to win fame brought
Ignatius to Pamploma to aid in the defence of that
frontier city against French attack. The defence was
hopeless; when, on May 20, 1521, he was hit by a cannon
ball which shattered one leg and badly injured the
other, Ignatius and the city of Pamplona both fell
to the French forces.
French doctors cared for the badly-wounded
Ignatius and return him to Loyola, where he spent
a long convalescence. In this forced period of inactivity
he asked for books to read and, out of boredom, accepted
the only ones available - The Lives of the Saints
and The Life of Christ. When not reading, the romantic
knight dreamed - at times of imitating the deeds of
St. Francis and St. Dominic, at times of knightly
deeds of valour in service of "a certain lady".
After a time, he came to realise that "there
was this difference. When he was thinking of those
things of the world, he took much delight in them,
but afterwards, when he was tired and put them aside,
he found himself dry and dissatisfied. but when he
thought of ... practising all the rigours tha the
saw in the saints, not only was he consoled when he
had these thoughts, but even after putting them aside
he remained satisfied and joyful ... His eyes were
opened a little, and he began to marvel at the difference
and to reflect upon it. Little by little he came to
recognise the difference between the spirits that
were stirring". Ignatius was discovering God
at work in his life; his desire for fame was transformed
into a desire to dedicate himself completely to God,
although he was still very unsure what this meant.
"The one thing he wanted to do was to go to Jerusalem
as soon as he recovered ... with as much of disciplines
and fasts as a generous spirit, fired with God, would
want to perform.
Ignatius began the journey to Jerusalem
as son as his recovery was complete. The first stop
was the famous shrine of Montserrat. On March 24,
1522, he laid his sword and dagger "before the
altar of Our Lady of Montserrat, where he had resolved
to lay aside his garments and to don the armour of
Christ." He spent the whole night in vigil, a
pilgrim's staff in his hand. From Montserrat he journeyed
to a town named Manresa, intending to remain for only
a few days. He remained for nearly a year.
Manresa
Ignatius lived as a pilgrim, begging
for his basic needs and spending nearly all of his
time in prayer. At first the days were filled with
great consolation and joy, but soon prayer became
torment and he experienced only severe temptations,
scruples, and such great desolation that he wished
"with great force to throw himself through a
large hole in his room." Finally peace returned.
Ignatius reflected in prayer on the "good and
evil spirits" at work in experiences such as
this, and he began to recognise that his freedom to
respond to God was influenced by these feelings of
"consolation" and "desolation".
"God treated him at this time just as a schoolmaster
treats a child whom he is teaching".
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The pilgrim gradually became more
sensitive to the interior movements of his heart and
the exterior influences of the surrounding world.
He recognised God revealing His love and inviting
a response, but he also recognised that his freedom
to respond to that love could be helped or hindered
by the way he dealt with these influences. He learned
to respond in freedom to God's love by struggling
to remove the obstacles to freedom. But "love
is expressed in deed". The fullness of freedom
led inevitably to total fidelity; the free response
of Ignatius to the love of God took the form of loving
service: a total dedication to the service of Christ
who, for Ignatius the nobleman, was his "King".
Because it was a response in love to God's love, it
could never be enough; the logic of love demanded
a response that was ever more("magis").
Designed By
.R.a.h.u.l. .D.e.v. .K.a.t.a.r.e.y.
The conversion to loving service
of God was confirmed in an experience that took place
as he stopped to rest one day at the side of the river
Cardoner. "While he was seated there, the eyes
of his understanding began to be opened; not that
he saw any vision, but he understood and learned many
things, both spiritual matters and matters of faith
and of scholarship, and this with so great an enlightenment
that everything seemed new to him ... He experienced
a great clarity in his understanding. This was such
that in the whole course of his life, after completing
sixty-two years, even if he gathered up all the various
helps he may have had from God and all the various
things he has known, even adding them all together,
he does not think he had got as much as at that one
time".
gnatius recorded his experiences
in a little book, a practice begun during his convalescence
at Loyola. At first these notes were only for himself,
but gradually he saw the possibility of a broader
purpose. "When he noticed some things in his
soul and found them useful, he thought they might
also be useful to others, and so he put them in writing".
He had discovered God, and thus discovered the meaning
of life. He took advantage of every opportunity to
guide others through this same experience of discovery.
As time went on, the notes took on a more structured
form and became the basis for a small book called
The Spiritual Exercises, published in order to help
others guide men and women through the experience
of an interior freedom that leads to the faithful
service of others in service of God.
The Spirit Exercises is not a book
simply to be read; it is the guide to an experience,
an active engagement enabling growth in the freedom
that leads to faithful service. The experience of
Ignatius at Manresa can become a personal lived experience.
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In the Exercises each person has
the possibility of discovering that, though sinful,
he or she is uniquely loved by God and invited to
respond to His love. This response begins with an
acknowledgment of sin and its effects, a realisation
that God's love overcomes sin, and a desire for this
forgiving and redeeming love. The freedom to respond
is then made possible through a growing ability, with
God's help, to recognise and engage in the struggle
to overcome the interior and exterior factors that
hinder a free response. This response develops positively
through a process of seeking and embracing the will
of God the Father, whose love was revealed in the
person and life of His Son, Jesus Christ, and of discovering
and choosing the specific ways in which this loving
service of God is accomplished through active service
on behalf of other men and women, within the heart
of reality.
Leaving Manresa in 1523, Ignatius
continued his journey to Jerusalem. His experiences
during the months at Manresa completed the break with
his past life and confirmed his desire to give himself
completely to God's service, but the desire was still
not clearly focused. He wanted to stay in Jerusalem,
visiting the holy places and serving others, but he
was not permitted to remain in that troubled city.
"After the pilgrim realised that it was not God's
will that he remain in Jerusalem, he continually pondered
within himself what he ought to do; and eventually
he was rather inclined to study for some time so that
he would be able to help souls, and he decided to
go to Barcelona". Though he was thirty years
old he went to school, sitting in class beside te
young boys of the city to learn grammar; two years
later, he moved on to university studies at Alcala.
When he was not studying he taught others about the
ways of God and shared his Spiritual Exercises with
them. But the Inquisition would not permit someone
without training in theology to speak about spiritual
things. Rather than keep silent about the one thing
that really mattered to him, and convinced that God
was leading him, Ignatius left Alcala and went to
Salamanca. The forces of the Inquisition continued
to harass him until finally, in 1528, he left Spain
entirely and moved to France and the University of
Paris.
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Ignatius remained in Paris for seven
years. Though his preaching and direction in Barcelona,
Alcala, and Salamanca had attracted companions who
stayed with him for a time, it was at the University
of Paris that a more lasting group of "friends
in the Lord" was formed. Peter Favre and Francis
Xavier were his room mates, "whom he later won
for God's service by means of the Spiritual Exercises".
Attracted by the same challenge, four others soon
joined them. Each of these men experienced God's love
personally, and their desire to respond was so complete
that their lives were totally transformed. As each
one shared this experience with the others, they formed
a bond of community which was to last throughout their
lives.
Paris to Rome
In 1534, this small group of seven
companions journeyed together to a small monastery
chapel in Montmartre, outside of Paris, and the only
priest among them - Peter Favre - celebrated a Mass
at which they consecrated their lives to God through
vows of poverty and chastity. It was during these
days that they "determined what they would do,
namely, go to Venice and Jerusalem, and spend their
lives for the good of souls". At Venice the six
other companions were ordained as priests, Ignatius
among them. But their decision to go to Jerusalem
was not to become a reality.
Recurring warfare between Christian
and Islamic armies made travel to the East impossible.
While they waited for the tension to ease and pilgrim
journeys to be resumed, the companions spent their
days preaching, giving the exercises, working in hospitals
and among the poor. Finally, when a year had passed
and Jerusalem remained inaccessible, they decided
that they would "return to Rome and present themselves
to the Vicar of Christ so that he could make use of
them wherever he thought it would be more for the
glory of God and the good of souls".
Their resolve to put themselves
at the service of the Holy Father meant that they
might be sent to different parts of the world, wherever
the Pope had need o them; the "friends in the
Lord" would be dispersed. It was only then that
they decided to form a more permanent bond which would
keep them united even when they were physically separated.
They would add the vow of obedience, thus becoming
a religious order.
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Toward the end of their journey
to Rome, at a small wayside chapel in the village
of La Storta, Ignatius "was visited very especially
by God ... He was at prayer in a church and experienced
such a change in his soul and saw so clearly that
God the Father placed him with Christ his Son that
he would not dare doubt it - that God the Father had
placed him with his Son". The companions became
Companions of Jesus, to be intimately associated with
the risen Christ's work of redemption, carried out
in and through the church, working in the world. Service
in God in Christ Jesus became service in the church
and of the church in its redemptive mission.
In 1539 the companions, now ten,
were received favorably by Pope Paul III, and the
Society of Jesus was formally approved in 1540; a
few months later, Ignatius was elected its first Superior
General.
B. The Society of Jesus Enters Education:
1540 - 1556
Even though all of these first companions
of Ignatius were graduates of the University of Paris,
the original purposes of the Society of Jesus did
not include educational institutions. As described
in the "Formula" presented to Paul III for
his approval, the Society of Jesus was founded "to
strive especially for the defence and propagation
of the faith and for the progress of soul in Christian
life and doctrine, by means of public preaching, lectures,
and any other ministration whatsoever of the word
of God, and further by means of the Spiritual Exercises,
the education of children and unlettered persons in
Christianity, and the spiritual consolation of Christ's
faithful through hearing confessions and administering
the other sacraments". Ignatius wanted Jesuits
to be free to move from place to place wherever the
need was greatest; he was convinced that institutions
would tie them down and prevent this mobility. But
the companions had only one goal: "in all things
to love and serve the Divine Majesty"; they would
adopt whatever means could best accomplish this love
and service of God through the service of others.
The positive results to be obtained
from the education of young boys soon became apparent,
and it was not long before Jesuits became involved
in this work. Francis Xavier, writing from Goa, India
in 1542, was enthusiastic in his description of the
effect Jesuits there were having when they offered
instruction at St. Paul's College; Ignatius responded
with encouragement. A college had been established
in Gandia, Spain for the education of those preparing
to join the Society of Jesus; at the insistence of
parents it began, 1546, to admit other boys of the
city. The first "Jesuit school", in the
sense of an institution intended primarily for young
lay students, was founded in Messina, Sicily only
two years later. And when it became apparent that
education was not only an apt means for human and
spiritual development but also an effective instrument
for defending a faith under attack by the Reformers,
the number of Jesuit schools began to increase very
rapidly: before his death in 1556, Ignatius personally
approved the foundation of 40 schools. For centuries,
religious congregations had contributed to the growth
of education in philosophy and theology. For the members
of this new order to extend their educational work
to the humanities and even to running the schools,
was something new in the life of the church; it needed
formal approval by Papal decree.
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Ignatius, meanwhile, remained in
Rome and dedicated the last years of his life to writing
the Constitutions of this new religious order.
Inspired by the same vision embodied
in the Spiritual Exercises, the Constitutions manifest
the Ignatian ability to combine exalted ends with
the most exact and concrete means for achieving them.
The work, divided into ten "Parts", is a
formative guidebook for Jesuit life.
In its first draft, Part IV consisted
of directives for the education of young men being
formed as Jesuits. Since he was approving the establishment
of new schools at the same time as he was writing
the Constitutions, Ignatius partly revised part IV
to include the guiding educational principles for
the work that was to be undertaken in these schools.
This section of the Constitutions is, therefore the
best source for the explicit and direct thought of
Ignatius on the apostolate of education, even though
it was largely completed before he realised the extensive
role education was to play in the apostolic work of
Jesuits. The Preamble to Part IV sets the goal: "The
aim which the Society of Jesus directly seeks is to
aid its own members and their fellowmen to attain
the ultimate end for which they were created. To achieve
this purpose, in addition to the example of one's
life, learning and a method of expounding it are also
necessary". The priorities in the formation of
Jesuits became priorities of Jesuit education: a stress
on the humanities, to be followed by philosophy and
theology, a careful orderly advance to be observed
in pursuing these successive branches of knowledge,
repetition of the material and active involvement
of the students in their own education. Much time
should be spent in developing good style in writing.
The role of the Rector, as the centre of authority,
inspiration and unity is essential. These were not
new pedagogical methods; Ignatius was familiar with
lack of method, and with the methods of many schools,
especially the careful methods of the University of
Paris. He chose and adapted those which would be most
effective in achieving the purposes of Jesuit education.
When speaking explicitly about schools for lay students
in Part IV, chapter 7, Ignatius is specific about
only a few matters. He insists, for example, that
the students (at the time nearly all Christians),
be "well-instructed in Christian doctrine".
Also, in accordance with the principle that there
be no temporal remuneration for any Jesuit ministry,
no fees are to be charged. Except for these and a
few other details, he is content to apply a basic
principle found throughout the Constitutions: "Since
there must be a great variety in particular cases
in accordance with the circumstances of place and
persons, this present treatment will not descend further
to what is particular, except to say that there should
be rules which come down to everything necessary in
each college". In a later note, he adds a suggestion:
"From the Rules of the Roman College, the part
which is suitable to the other colleges can be adapted
to them."
In separate correspondence, Ignatius
promised further development of the rules, or basic
principles, which should govern all the schools. But
he insisted that he could not provide these principles
until he could derive them from the concrete experiences
of those actually engaged in education. Before he
could fulfil his promise, Ignatius died. It was the
early morning of July 31, 1556.
