When Did Saint Ignatius Learn to Read

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (For the Greater Celebrity of God)

St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – 1556) was born into Basque (Spain) nobility in the family castle of Azpeitia, the youngest of 13 children. Baptized Iñigo Lòpez de Loyola, his childhood dream was i of chivalry and adventure. His father (Beltran de Loyola) performed deeds of valor in the final years of the Reconquista (the Christian re-conquest of Espana from the Moors). His older brother, Juan, sailed with Columbus on the explorer's second trek to the new world. Some of his other brothers fought (and some died) in France, Naples, the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern French republic and western Deutschland) and the Americas. Like his brothers, St. Ignatius longed to cede himself for a great rex, serve faithfully a beautiful lady and win immortal fame in the optics of the globe. His early adult life was marked by gambling, womanizing and fighting. He longed to prove himself in battle.

In 1516, Ignatius went to Pamplona and obtained a position in the army of the local duke. Spain and French republic were fighting over a country that both claimed to exist their own. French republic attacked the city with an army of 12,000 men and heavy artillery. The city council surrendered, but St. Ignatius and his troops refused to surrender. The fighting continued for another vi hours, and St. Ignatius was ready to fight to the death. He stood with his sword in paw at the fortress wall when a missive passed betwixt his legs, shattering one and wounding the other. As St. Ignatius fell to the ground, his troop'due south courage did too. They surrendered to the French commander who spared the lives of St. Ignatius and his men and sent his own army doctors to treat St. Ignatius.

After two weeks, St. Ignatius was sent back to his parent'due south home (castle) to recuperate. The doctors said St. Ignatius' leg had been badly set by the regular army doctors and that it would have to be broken and reset. (St. Ignatius describes the procedure in his autobiography as "slaughterhouse.") When the wounds healed and the bone mended, St. Ignatius found, to his dismay, that one leg was shorter than the other. His bone protruded causing St. Ignatius to not be able to wear the tight-fitting hose and boots that were fashionable at the fourth dimension. St. Ignatius commanded his doctors to saw off the offending lump of the os and stretch his leg – all without anesthesia.

Equally he convalesced, he asked for some novels on chivalry, but his sister-in-police force (Magdalena) who was caring for him, said she had none. The only two books in the house were one on the life of Christ and the other on the lives of the saints. As he read these books, St. Ignatius's heart was gradually transformed. He became ashamed of the vanity, pride and lust that ruled his life. While recuperating, St. Ignatius underwent a conversion, but he did non let get of the chivalric ideals of suffering and self-sacrifice. He shifted his focus from winning honor in this world to winning salvation in the side by side. One night, it is said, that he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin and the Christ Child in his room, which filled him with an intense joy for several hours, simply also a feeling of shame over his old ways. He was adamant to change. He decided, as soon as he was well enough, to set out for Jerusalem equally a humble pilgrim. On his way he stopped at a Benedictine monastery in Montserrat. He exchanged his knight's apparel (giving them to a beggar) and took on the dress of a poor pilgrim. Imitating the chivalric ceremony in which a gentleman prepared for knighthood, St. Ignatius laid downwardly his sword before the altar of the Virgin of Montserrat and spent the night in prayer. His next stop was Manresa, where he planned to spend merely a few days. Plans changed and he remained there for about a year. He lived in a prison cell in a Dominican Friary where the Dominican'southward introduced him to Thomas á Kempis' False of Christ and taught St. Ignatius the basics of religious germination. In his effort to repent for his by sins, he embraced an ascetic plan of fasting and concrete penance. He gradually came to experience an inner peace which he claimed to take enjoyed the residuum of his life – a peace that he said comes from knowing that one is doing the will of God. (This becomes a disquisitional component of his "discernment of spirits.")

It was during this time that he began writing what later became the Spiritual Exercises (i of the classics of Western spirituality). The Spiritual Exercises lay out a program (usually for thirty days, in confinement) of exam of conscience, contemplation, meditation based on a vivid representation of scriptural events and discernment of God's will in one's life. Later the Manresa feel, the Inquisition examined the Spiritual Exercises for heresy and revisions were forced to be made.

St. Ignatius was fatigued to the monastic life, merely decided that his own vocation was to be an active apostolate, ane congenital on the foundation of personal conversion and individual sanctification. In 1523 he left Manresa for Jerusalem. Intending to stay in the Holy State for the residual of his life with the implicit mission to convert Muslims, his plans were derailed when a Franciscan guardian of the holy places ordered him to leave the urban center to avoid capture and even death at the easily of the Turks. When St. Ignatius refused, the guardian responded that the pope had authorized him to excommunicate disobedient pilgrims. Then St. Ignatius returned to Espana where he enrolled in the university with his kickoff step toward his long-term goal of ordination to the priesthood. He was xxx-three at the time.

His zealousness to bring souls to God led him to teach university students and adults how to pray and how to interpret the Gospels. Information technology was at this bespeak in his life he began to show the moderation that had been absent from his own previous spiritual life and which would become the hallmark of Jesuit confessional practices and approaches to moral theology. He and his group of disciples (men and women alike) began to wear clerical dress and a tonsure (traditional exercise of clerics and monastics of cutting or shaving the hair from the scalp [while leaving some parts uncut]). Since he was a layman with no formal grooming of any kind of theology or biblical studies and he was not part of a religious society, this behavior drew the attention of the local Inquisition. He was summoned before it and released only on the condition that he and his friends non dress as members of a religious order. The Inquisition summoned him again for his makeshift organized religion classes, and he spent 42 days in an Inquisition prison before he was cleared of whatsoever suspicion of heresy. He was released under the atmospheric condition that he article of clothing the wearing apparel of an ordinary student and non hold meetings. He could non accept the latter status and and then he moved to Salamanca, Spain, where he ran into similar bug. During that time, he was imprisoned for iii weeks while his Spiritual Exercises were examined. He was again cleared of heresy, only St. Ignatius ended he had to leave Kingdom of spain entirely. He moved to Paris in 1528 where he studied philosophy for three years and graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 1534 from the University of Paris.

In Paris, he was joined by other followers who were to become the core of his group. He shared rooms with St. Francis Xavier (the smashing missionary-to-be) and St. Peter Faber. Under St. Ignatius' influence, both men abased their plans for worldly careers in favor of a life dedicated to God. As the group grew to eight, the piffling band decided to accept private vows of poverty and chastity and also one to go to Jerusalem to catechumen the Muslims, or failing that, to identify themselves at the service of the pope.

"The companions" worked among the sick and dying in Paris. Their plans to travel to Jerusalem were postponed due to an outbreak of war between the Turkish Empire and Venice, and they took advantage of the delay to go ordained and brand a long retreat together. They split into twos and threes to work in dissimilar cities on the Italian peninsula. Though not formally a religious order, when people asked who they were, they said they were the " Compaña de Jesús " or in Latin, the Societas Jesu (in English, the Social club of Jesus).

In Nov 1537, on his manner to Rome to offering their services to Pope Paul 3, St. Ignatius had a vision of God the Begetter in which He promised, "I will be favorable to you in Rome." God was favorable and St. Ignatius and his companions, St. Peter Faber and James Lainez impressed Pope Paul Iii. The pope assigned Faber and Lainez to teach theology and Scripture at Rome'south Sapienza University while St. Ignatius carried out his ain impromptu ministry of preaching, didactics and bringing souls to God.

By now, St. Ignatius and his companions began to run into themselves equally a distinct religious congregation of teachers of Cosmic doctrine, ready to practice anything and to go anywhere at the command of the pope. St. Ignatius spent fourth dimension cartoon up an initial constitution for the companions in 1539. The apostolate was to focus on preaching, hearing confessions, educational activity and caring for the sick, but it involved none of the traditional elements of a religious guild such as praying the Divine Office in common or other prescribed prayers and penances. The chemical element of directly obedience to the pope was too a novel characteristic. While the lack of prayers said in mutual was highly criticized, St. Ignatius insisted that his company must take sufficient flexibility to appoint in the apostolate, wherever and whenever they were needed. Pope Paul II gave formal approval to the Club of Jesus on September 27, 1540. St. Ignatius was elected superior in 1541.

St. Ignatius spent the rest of his life in Rome, administering the Society and caring for the poor, the sick, orphans and prostitutes. He was a prolific letter writer and would proceed in touch with his members through correspondence. He also wrote to people in loftier places to provide spiritual management and to win fiscal support for the order's work. His governing mode was collegial rather than disciplinarian. He preferred to go out decisions to the judgment of those closest to the situation (subsidiarity). Since all the members had experienced and knew how to integrate the Spiritual Exercises into daily life, St. Ignatius felt that was sufficient for decisions to be made at the local level. However, he regarded obedience every bit the best means of self-denial. The model was always Jesus, who was " obedient to death, fifty-fifty death on a cantankerous " (Phil. two:viii). St. Ignatius placed such a loftier premium on obedience and every bit a outcome, stressed the importance of selecting the correct people for positions of leadership in the Society.

In the Social club of Jesus' constitution, the corporeality of study required of Jesuits would exist more all-encompassing than in other orders and solemn vows were to be postponed until an aptitude for such study had been tested. St. Ignatius was convinced of the demand for an educated clergy and of the importance of an educated laity as well. The first of many colleges and universities founded past the Jesuits was opened in Padua in 1542. Courses in philosophy and theology leading to ordination were added in 1553 and the famous Gregorian University in Rome was born. Institutions of higher education were spread throughout the world including Germany, Espana, Portugal, France, India, Brazil and Japan within a decade after his death. Today there are Jesuit colleges in 42 different countries. In the Unities States alone, there are 28 Jesuit colleges and universities.

St. Ignatius died of a sudden on July 31, 1556 and was buried next to the high altar in Santa Maria della Strada. When the church was later demolished, his remains were enshrined in the Church of the Gesú, in Rome, Italy (the Mother Church of the Jesuits). He was beatified in 1609 and canonized in 1622, along with St. Teresa of Avila, St. Philip Neri, St. Francis Xavier and St. Isidore the Farmer. St. Ignatius is often associated with the following words, which is the motto of the Jesuits, " advertizing majorem Dei gloriam " which ways " For the Greater Glory of God ." Nosotros gloat St. Ignatius' feast day on July 31.

Resources on St. Ignatius Loyola

Broderick, South.J. James. The Origin of the Jesuits. Chicago, IL: Loyola University Press, 1986

Craughwell, Thomas J. Saints for Every Occasion:  101 of Heaven's Most Powerful Patrons.  Charlotte, NC:  C.D. Stampley Enterprises, Inc., 2001.

Delaney, John J. Lexicon of Saints.  Garden City, NY:  Doubleday & Visitor, Inc., 1980.

Fagin, Due south.J., Gerald K., Due south.J. Putting On the Eye of Christ: How the Spiritual Exercises Invite Us to a Virtuous Life. Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 2010.

Gallagher, Paul.  "St. Ignatius." Making All Things New: Transforming the Whole Person. Entry posted May 2010.  www.MakingAllThingsNew.com/transformation/spirit/st-ignatiu/ (accessed June x, 2012)

Goncalves da Câmara, Luís, S.J. Remembering Iñigo:   Glimpses of the Life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola; The Memoriale of Luís Goncalves da Câmara.   Translated by Alexander Eaglestone and Joseph A. Munitiz, Southward.J.    Saint Louis, MO:    The Found of Jesuit Sources, 2004.

Martin, James, Due south.J.   The Jesuit Guide to (nearly) Everything: A Spirituality of Real Life.   New York, NY:   HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.

McBrien, Richard P. Lives of the Saints:  from Mary and St. Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother Teresa. San Francisco, CA:  HarperSanFrancisco (Sectionalisation of HarperCollins Publishers), 2001.

Walsh, Michael, ed. Butler's Lives of the Saints.  Curtailed Edition.  New York, NY:  Harper & Row Publishers, 1985.

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Source: https://www.stmarymagdalen.org/Catholicism/Saints/StIgnatius.htm

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