From the desk of the pastor for Jan. 25, 2025

The Lord be with you! Before we move away from the Counter Reformation, we need to account for its spiritual element. In the person of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we have an exemplary man who deliberately chose God over nation and honor.

Born the youngest son of thirteen children, Ignatius initially set out as a soldier. His family had been minor nobility and through their connections and his industry became at first a page and soon a direct subordinate to the Viceroy of Navarre. After ten years in that duke’s service, Ignatius was gravely wounded while defending the fortress of Pamplona. So severe was Ignatius’s vanity that he had his leg broken…twice to make the bones better.

While recovering from that second surgery, Ignatius experienced a profound religious conversion. Unable to walk around much, he read. He discovered, however, that reading about knights and heroes left him unsatisfied afterwards but that reading the lives of the saints left him at peace. Ignatius had come to understand how to see his emotions as indicators of his heart and the movement of the Holy Spirit.* This insight not only changed his life but became a founding principle for the Jesuits, but we are skipping ahead of ourselves.

Ignatius then applied himself to mastering his own brokenness and learning theology. The first he did by living like a hermit for a year including living in a cave. The second he accomplished by studying in Barcelona before going to Paris. It was there in 1534 that he and six other “companions” took the vows of life long service that created the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. The Society received official recognition in 1540 when Pope Paul III accepted their founding rules and Ignatius as the Superior, or “Father General” of the Society. The actual constitution for the order would be approved in 1553, a few years before Ignatius’s death. The saint likely died from Malaria in Rome in 1556. By that time the Jesuits had expanded significantly in their scope of work and numbers.

The Jesuits quickly become both a scholarly and missionary force within the Church. By 1541 St. Francis Xavier had already embarked for India and the Far East, and the Jesuits possessed a university in Sicily. These twin works would define the Society for the next few hundred years as their work in letters and proclaiming the Gospel spread throughout Europe and the world.

St. Ignatius had started his adult life wanting to be a hero on the battlefield - an image he would use much in his Spiritual Exercises. In discerning that God wanted him to spread His Glory, Ignatius represents well the renewal and vigor of the Counter Reformation Church. The Jesuits attracted many men to their ranks and educated many more because they shared with their founder a dedication to what the eye could not see. Next week we turn to an area the early Jesuit missionaries did tremendous work in: the Americas. May we always seek the Greater Glory of God (ADMG).

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John

*See the bulletin article for February 23, 2025 for more information on Ignatian discernment.