Ignatius of Loyola

Sanctuary of Loyola, in Azpeitia, built over Ignatius' birthplace

Íñigo López de Loyola (more fully, de Oñaz y Loyola; sometimes erroneously called de Recalde)[7] was born in the municipality of Azpeitia at the castle of Loyola in today's Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. He was the youngest of thirteen children. His mother died soon after his birth, and he was put in the care of María de Garín, the local blacksmith's wife, who brought him up.[8]

He was baptized Íñigo, after St. Enecus (Innicus) (Basque: Eneko; Spanish: Íñigo), Abbot of Oña, and an affectionate medieval Basque diminutive name meaning, "My little one".[7][9] It is not clear when he began using the Latin name "Ignatius" instead of his baptismal name "Íñigo".[10] Historian Gabriel María Verd says that Íñigo did not intend to change his name, but rather adopted a name which he believed was a simple variant of his own, for use in France and Italy where it was better understood.[11] Íñigo adopted the surname "de Loyola" in reference to the Basque village of Loyola where he was born.

Military career

Ignatius in armor, in a 16th-century painting

Saint Ignatius of Loyola's Vision of Christ and God the Father at La Storta by Domenichino[12]

As a boy Íñigo became a page in the service of a relative, Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, treasurer (contador mayor) of the kingdom of Castile.

As a young man Íñigo was keen on military exercises and was driven by a desire for fame. He framed his life around the stories of El Cid, the knights of Camelot, and the Song of Roland.[13] He joined the army at seventeen, and according to one biographer, he strutted about "with his cape flying open to reveal his tight-fitting hose and boots; a sword and dagger at his waist".[14] According to another he was "a fancy dresser, an expert dancer, a womanizer, sensitive to insult, and a rough punkish swordsman who used his privileged status to escape prosecution for violent crimes committed with his priest brother at carnival time."[15]

In 1509, aged 18, Íñigo took up arms for Antonio Manrique de Lara, 2nd Duke of Nájera. His diplomacy and leadership qualities earned him the title "servant of the court", and made him very useful to the Duke.[16] Under the Duke's leadership, Íñigo participated in many battles without injury. However at the Battle of Pamplona on 20 May 1521 he was gravely injured when a French-Navarrese expedition force stormed the fortress of Pamplona, and a cannonball ricocheting off a nearby wall, shattered his right leg.[17] Íñigo was returned to his father's castle in Loyola, where, in an era before anesthetics, he underwent several surgical operations to repair the leg, with his bones set and rebroken. In the end, the operations left his right leg shorter than the other. He would limp for the rest of his life, with his military career over.[15]

Religious conversion and visions

Manresa, Chapel in the Cave of Saint Ignatius where Ignatius practiced asceticism and conceived his Spiritual Exercises

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While recovering from surgery, Íñigo underwent a spiritual conversion and discerned a call to the religious life. His beloved sister-in-law, Magdalena de Araoz, in her wisdom chose to bring him texts to read which she knew would help him encounter the living God, while he was recuperating.[7][18] Since the chivalric romances he enjoyed to read were not available to him in the castle, he came to read religious texts on the life of Jesus and on the lives of the saints.

The religious work which most particularly struck him was the De Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony.[19] This book would influence his whole life, inspiring him to devote himself to God and follow the example of Francis of Assisi and other great monks. It also inspired his method of meditation, since Ludolph proposes that the reader place himself mentally at the scene of the Gospel story, visualising the crib at the Nativity, etc. This type of meditation, known as Simple Contemplation, was the basis for the method that St. Ignatius would promote in his Spiritual Exercises.[20][21][22]

Aside from dreaming about imitating the saints in his readings, Íñigo was still wandering off in his mind about what "he would do in service to his king and in honor of the royal lady he was in love with". Cautiously he came to realize the after-effect of both kinds of his dreams. He experienced a desolation and dissatisfaction when the romantic heroism dream was over, but, the saintly dream ended with much joy and peace. It was the first time he learned about discernment.[15]

After he had recovered sufficiently to walk again, Íñigo resolved to begin a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to "kiss the earth where our Lord had walked",[15] and to do stricter penances.[23] He thought that his plan was confirmed by a vision of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus he experienced one night, which resulted in much consolation to him.[23] In March 1522, he visited the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat. There, he carefully examined his past sins, confessed, gave his fine clothes to the poor he met, wore a "garment of sack-cloth", then hung his sword and dagger at the Virgin's altar during an overnight vigil at the shrine.[7]

From Montserrat he walked on to the nearby town of Manresa (Catalonia), where he lived for about a year, begging for his keep, and then eventually doing chores at a local hospital in exchange for food and lodging. For several months he spent much of his time praying in a cave nearby[24] where he practiced rigorous asceticism, praying for seven hours a day, and formulating the fundamentals of his Spiritual Exercises.

Íñigo also experienced a series of visions in full daylight while at the hospital. These repetitive visions appeared as "a form in the air near him and this form gave him much consolation because it was exceedingly beautiful ... it somehow seemed to have the shape of a serpent and had many things that shone like eyes, but were not eyes. He received much delight and consolation from gazing upon this object ... but when the object vanished he became disconsolate".[25] He came to interpret this vision as diabolical in nature.[26]

In September 1523, Íñigo made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the aim of settling there. He remained there from 3 to 23 September but was sent back to Europe by the Franciscans.[27]

He returned to Barcelona and at the age of thirty-three attended a free public grammar school in preparation for university entrance. He went on to the University of Alcalá,[28] where he studied Theology and Latin from 1524 to 1534.

There he encountered a number of devout women who had been called before the Inquisition. These women were considered alumbrados (Illuminati) – a group linked in their zeal and spirituality to Franciscan reforms, but they had incurred mounting suspicion from the administrators of the Inquisition. Once when Íñigo was preaching on the street, three of these devout women began to experience ecstatic states. "One fell senseless, another sometimes rolled about on the ground, another had been seen in the grip of convulsions or shuddering and sweating in anguish." The suspicious activity took place while Íñigo had preached without a degree in theology. As a result, he was singled out for interrogation by the Inquisition, but was later released.[29]

Following these risky activities, Íñigo (by now Ignatius) moved to France to study at the University of Paris. He attended first the ascetic Collège de Montaigu, moving on to the Collège Sainte-Barbe to study for a Master's degree.[30]

He arrived in France at a time of anti-Protestant turmoil which had forced John Calvin to flee France. Very soon after, Ignatius had gathered around him six companions, all of them fellow students at the University.[31] They were the Spaniards Alfonso Salmeron, Diego Laynez, and Nicholas Bobadilla, with the Portuguese Simão Rodrigues, the Basque, Francis Xavier, and Peter Faber, a Savoyard, the latter two becoming his first companions,[15] and his closest associates in the foundation of the future Jesuit order.

"On the morning of the 15th of August, 1534, in the chapel of church of Saint Peter, at Montmartre, Loyola and his six companions, of whom only one was a priest, met and took upon themselves the solemn vows of their lifelong work."[32] Subsequently, they were to be joined by Francis Borgia, a member of the House of Borgia, who was the main aide to Emperor Charles V, and other nobles.

Ignatius gained a Magisterium from the University of Paris at the age of forty-three in 1535. In later life he would often be called "Master Ignatius" because of this.[32]

In 1539, with Peter Faber and Francis Xavier, Ignatius formed the Society of Jesus, which was approved in 1540 by Pope Paul III. He was chosen as the first Superior General of the order and invested with the title of "Father General" by the Jesuits.[33]

Ignatius sent his companions on missions across Europe to create schools, colleges, and seminaries. Juan de Vega, then ambassador of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, met Ignatius there and having formed a good impression of the Jesuits, invited them to travel with him to his new appointment as Viceroy of Sicily. As a result, a Jesuit college was opened in Messina, which proved a success, so that its rules and methods were later copied in subsequent colleges.[34]

In 1548 Ignatius was summoned before the Roman Inquisition to have his book of Spiritual Exercises examined. He was eventually released and the book given papal permission to print. In their published form the exercises were intended to last for a period of 28–30 days.

With the assistance of his personal secretary, Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Ignatius wrote the Jesuit Constitutions, which were adopted in 1553. They created a centralised organisation of the order,[35][36] and stressed absolute self-denial and obedience to the Pope and to superiors in the Church hierarchy. This was summarised in the motto perinde ac cadaver – "as if a dead body",[37] meaning that a Jesuit should be as emptied of ego as is a corpse.[38] However the overarching Jesuit principle became: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam ("for the greater glory of God").

During the years 1553–1555, Ignatius dictated his autobiography ("Autobiografía de San Ignacio de Loyola" in Wikisource in Spanish) to his secretary, Father Gonçalves da Câmara. It has become a companion volume to his Spiritual Exercises. It had been kept in the archives of the Jesuit order for about 150 years, before the Bollandists published the text in Acta Sanctorum.

• 
  Ignatius as Superior General
• 
  Statue of Saint Ignatius in the Church of the Gesù, Rome

Ignatius died in Rome on 31 July 1556, probably of the "Roman Fever", a severe variant of malaria which was endemic in Rome throughout medieval history. An autopsy revealed that he also had kidney and bladder stones, a probable cause of the abdominal pains he suffered from in later life.[39] His body was dressed in his priestly robes and placed in a wooden coffin and buried in the crypt of the Maria della Strada Church on 1 August 1556. In 1568 the church was demolished and replaced with the Church of the Gesù. Ignatius' remains were reinterred in the new church in a new coffin.[40]

Ignatius was beatified by Pope Paul V on 27 July 1609, and canonized by Pope Gregory XV on 12 March 1622.[41] His feast day is celebrated annually on 31 July, the day he died. He is venerated as the patron saint of Catholic soldiers, the Military Ordinariate of the Philippines, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore,[42] in his native Basque Country, Antwerp, Belo Horizonte, Junín.

Numerous institutions across the world are named for him. Chief among them is the Basilica of St Ignatius Loyola, built next to the house where he was born in Azpeitia, in the Basque Country. The house itself, now a museum, is part of the basilica complex.

In 1671, the mission in St. Ignace, Michigan was named in his honour, by Father Jacques Marquette.

In 1949 he was the subject of a Spanish biographical film The Captain from Loyola starring Rafael Durán in the role of Ignatius.

In 2016, he was the subject of a Filipino film Ignacio de Loyola in which he was portrayed by Andreas Muñoz.[43]

• 
  Tomb of Saint Ignatius, c. 1675
• 
  Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius
• 
  Portrait by Pieter Paul Rubens
• 
  Visions of Ignatius, 1617–18, Peter Paul Rubens
• 
  The journeys of Ignatius of Loyola at different times
• 
  A page from Spiritual Exercises

• The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, TAN Books, 2010. ISBN 978-0-89555-153-5
• Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, London, 2012. limovia.net ISBN 978-1-78336-012-3
• Loyola, (St.) Ignatius (1964). The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Anthony Mottola. Garden City: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-02436-5.
• Loyola, (St.) Ignatius (1900). Joseph O'Conner (ed.). The Autobiography of St. Ignatius. New York: Benziger Brothers. OCLC 1360267. For information on the O'Conner and other translations, see notes in A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola Page 11-12.
• Loyola, (St.) Ignatius (1992). John Olin (ed.). The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, with Related Documents. New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 0-8232-1480-X.

• List of Catholic saints
• List of Jesuits
• Saint Ignatius, patron saint archive
• Marie-Madeleine d'Houët foundress of the Sisters, Faithful Companions of Jesus
• Martín Ignacio de Loyola
• The Cave of Saint Ignatius, a sanctuary built where Ignatius of Loyola reflected for 11 months in a grotto, in Manresa.
• Isabella Roser and Isabel de Josa, wealthy Catalan women who were Loyola's benefactors from the 1520s onwards.

• Bartoli, Daniello (1855). History of the Life and Institute of St. Ignatius de Loyola: Founder of the Society of Jesus. New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother.
• Caraman, Philip (1990). Ignatius Loyola: A Biography of the Founder of the Jesuits'. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-250130-5.
• August Derleth, St. Ignatius and the Company of Jesus, Vision Books, 1956. LCCN 56-7278
• Foss, Michael (1969). The Founding of the Jesuits, 1540. Turning Points in History Series. London: Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-01513-8.
• García Villoslada, Ricardo (1986). San Ignacio de Loyola: Nueva biografía (in Spanish). La Editorial Católica. ISBN 84-220-1267-7.
• Meissner, William (1992). Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06079-3.
• O'Malley, John W. (1993). The First Jesuits. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-30312-1.
• Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, TAN Books, 1997. ISBN 978-0-89555-345-4.
• St. Ignatius of Loyola, TAN Books, 2008. ISBN 978-0-89555-624-0.

• Works by Ignatius of Loyola at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Ignatius of Loyola at Internet Archive
• Works by Ignatius of Loyola at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• "St. Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor", Butler's Lives of the Saints
• The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Translation by Elder Mullan, S.J.
• Letters of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
• "Contemplation to Attain Love", by Ignatius of Loyola
• Founder Statue in St Peter's Basilica
• Colonnade Statue St Peter's Square
• The Book of Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, the Founder of the Jesuit Monastic Order in Arabic, dating from 1773