St. Ignatius Church St. Ignatius of Loyola
Born at Loyola
in the Basque country in Northern Spain in 1491, he served as a soldier until wounded in
the siege of Pamplona in 1521. Having not previously taken his faith seriously, he came to
his love of God during his convalescence, when he was given a Life of Christ and the
Saints to read. He spent a year in prayerful penance at Manresa, close to the famous
Catalan abbey of Montserrat, and then embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Having been
dissuaded from trying to convert Moslems, he could not at first find his true spiritual
vocation. He studied at several Spanish universities and finally in Paris, where he
discerned that he had the gift of helping those in spiritual trouble. He was joined by six
others (including St. Francis Xavier) who were to be the core of the Jesuits. They
undertook his famous 'Spiritual Exercises', which he had begun to form during his time as
a hermit, were ordained, an offered themselves to the Pope to serve in any way he desired.
They bound themselves by vows taken before the crucifix of St. Brigid in the Basilica of
St. Paul-outside-the-Walls, Rome. Such were the origins of the Jesuits, priests of a
religious Order living in community, devoted to education and spiritual direction, but -
unusually for the time - exempt from the communal singing of the Divine Office, so as to
leave themselves free to follow their particular responsibilities. The Jesuits were of
particular influence in Counter-Reformation Germany, in the survival of Catholicism in
England, and in the spread of the faith in Latin America. Organization and discipline were
their strong points, though some less favorable towards them saw them as a kind of army,
and at one stage they were suppressed; their very influential schools also tended to swamp
those of smaller teaching Orders. St. Ignatius himself died in 1556 and was canonized
in
1622.Other St. Ignatius Sites
St. Ignatius the Pilgrim
(Jesuits Online)
St.
Ignatius of Loyola (Catholic Online)
St.
Ignatius of Loyola (Jesuits of English Speaking Canada)
