The Pilgrim Saint: Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits

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Towards the end of his life, and much against his inclination, Ignatius Loyola was cajoled into giving an account of his earlier years. In this memoir he spoke of himself, not in the first person or even by his original Basque name, Inigo, but simply as 'the Pilgrim'.  It was as if that title summed up for him his view of himself as a restless man, always searching, always on the move, always wondering what opportunities for good lay around the next corner. And indeed, it is an accurate word-picture of the man we know as St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556). He grew up in a restless and exciting age.

It was a time of mind-boggling new discoveries: the year after his birth, for instance, Christopher Columbus set out on his first great voyage to the New World. It was a time too of explosive thinking in the Church and in society: while Ignatius was in his twenties, Martin Luther posted his famous theses on the door of the Cathedral in Wittenberg; John Calvin studied in Paris at the same time as Ignatius himself, although we don't know if they ever met; and the Council of Trent was about half-way through its eighteen years when he died. Ignatius was born in Loyola, in the Basque country in the north of Spain, the youngest of thirteen children.

His family belonged to the minor nobility of that region, and in his youth he was somewhat vain and arrogant, with lofty ambitions to be a courtier. While in the service of the Duke of Najera, he took part in a battle to defend the town of Pamplona against the invading French. Although greatly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by the French, Ignatius resisted any move to surrender, until he was struck by a cannon-ball which shattered his right leg at the knee. With his collapse in agony, the battle was over.

Surgery in those days was crude, but he tells us that he bore it all without showing any sign of pain. As he slowly regained his strength, still confined to his sick bed, he began to grow bored and asked for some romantic novels - the sort he liked - to pass the time. The only books that could be found in the castle of Loyola, however, were an account of the life of Christ and another about the saints' lives. Reading these books over and over, Ignatius found himself fired with a desire to give himself over totally to Christ in imitation of the most austere of the saints. If they could do it, why couldn't he? And so, as soon as he was able to walk again, and much against the wishes of his family, he set out alone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Not far from Loyola is the famous Benedictine monastery of Monserrat, and there Ignatius spent some days preparing for the general confession that he hoped would mark a total reversal in his life's ambitions. While in Monserrat, he spent a night in vigil before the statue of the Black Madonna, at the end of which he laid down his sword at her feet as a potent sign of his change of direction. As he moved on, he left his mule with the monks and exchanged his fine clothes for the rags of a beggar. He would now walk in poverty, totally dependent on God, on his pilgrim way.

His journey next took him to a little town called Manresa, where he intended to stay for a few days. In fact he spent the best part of a year there, praying, doing penance, and conversing with the increasing number of people who came to him for guidance. At first, he found himself beset by scruples about his past life, and full of anxieties and fears for the future. Then, as these anxieties began to lift, he started to have extraordinary, mystical experiences from God, experiences which continued all through his life and which made him acutely aware of God's presence, not only in times of prayer, but everywhere and in every person. It was in Manresa that he began to compile his little book, The Spiritual Exercises, as a help to others to find God at the heart of their own lives. After this unexpectedly protracted stay in Manresa, he once again set out on foot for Jerusalem, begging each day for food, and taking in Barcelona, Rome, Padua and Venice on the way. He had hoped to settle in Jerusalem, the city where Jesus died, but it was not to be. The political situation then, as now, was fraught in the Holy Land, and the Franciscan friars who were in charge of the holy places would not allow him to remain. Disappointed, he returned once again to Italy and then on to Spain. What would he do now?

Ignatius had become acutely aware that, despite his mystical experiences, he was ill equipped educationally to deal with the many people who wished to talk to him. So, although by now in his thirties, he decided to devote himself to study. Latin was a prerequisite to any serious study in those days, and Ignatius's Latin was poor, so he joined a class of young boys in Barcelona who were learning that language. Next he enrolled in lectures at the university of Alcalá, but failing to make much progress there he headed for the famous university in Salamanca. In each of these cities, he attracted many people who wished to speak to him about their lives and about God, and he gave some of them the Spiritual Exercises. He also begged daily for his food.

Failing once again to make much progress, he decided to move to Paris, which then had the most famous university in Europe, the Sorbonne. He stayed there for seven years, where he qualified in philosophy and theology. While in Paris, in order to devote himself better to study, he limited the amount of time he gave to spiritual direction and altered his begging habits. But, once again, through his life-style and his teaching, he made a huge impact on both students and teachers alike, and a close group of companions gathered around him who made the Spiritual Exercises and shared his vision. Among them was the man who would become perhaps the best loved Jesuit of all, Francis Xavier.

Their studies finished, the little group of companions set off for the region around Venice, from where they hoped to set sail for the Holy Land. They waited a year there, preaching in the towns, attending to the sick and dying in the hospices, teaching catechism to the children, conversing with individuals, and giving the Spiritual Exercises to those who were ready for them. Since only one of them was a priest, the others sought and got permission from the Pope to be ordained. After a year in that region, it was clear that they would be unable to get to the Holy Land - the sea journey was too dangerous for any ships to sail - and so they decided to set out for Rome, where they would present themselves to the Pope for him to send them wherever he wished.

In Rome, the little group was given charge of a church in the centre of the city, called Our Lady of the Wayside, and from there they started serving the needs of the people of Rome: celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, teaching theology, preaching, giving spiritual direction, directing the Spiritual Exercises, nursing the victims of plagues, championing the socially deprived.  Soon enough, it became apparent to Ignatius and his companions that, unknown to themselves, they had formed the nucleus of a new religious order. Over a period of several months, they teased out in detail the kind of order they envisaged. It would be called the Society of Jesus. Its identifying feature would be its total availability for mission. As such, its members would be ready to go anywhere in the world, at whatever cost to themselves, to undertake whatever ministry was required. Instead of living in stable monastic communities, they would be flexible and mobile, frequently on the move

They would not be bound by any obligation to sing the Office in common, nor would they wear any identifiable habit. In the sixteenth century such a view of religious life was revolutionary, and while the Pope was positive in his appraisal of the proposed now order, many of his officials were against it. Some of them even wondered if such a group could be called a religious order at all!

Eventually, after much delay, Pope Paul III gave his formal approval for the Society of Jesus to be recognised, and the Jesuits came into being in September, 1540. Shortly afterwards, Ignatius was elected first Superior General of the order, and he devoted the rest of his years overseeing the rapid growth of the Jesuits, deciding how to respond to the innumerable requests for help he regularly received, and drawing up the Constitutions of the order.

It was during this time too that he decided to welcome non-ordained members, who would work side by side with the priests, into the order. In the final period of his life, and in contrast with his middle years, Ignatius hardly moved outside Rome at all. His personal pilgrimage was over, but another - even greater - pilgrimage was about to begin, that of the Society of Jesus. For even in the lifetime of Ignatius, the Jesuits, true to his spirit, were to be found not only throughout the troubled countries of Europe; they were also reaching into those mysterious parts of the world that had only recently been discovered: India, Japan, China, Brazil, Ethiopia.. It was as if St. Ignatius had bequeathed to the order he founded his own restless spirit, his own search for opportunities to serve, his own pilgrim heart.