Ignatius of Loyola: Counter-Reformation's Jesuit Hope

St Ignatius of Loyola was born Íñigo López in October 1491 in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, Spain, to upper class parents ten months before Christopher Columbus was commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella to set sail for the New World in hope to “find riches for the Treasury, depleted by the long campaigns against the Moors.”^[1]

After his birth, Ignatius is given to a “wet-nurse,” as was the custom among upper classes.^[2] He is the youngest of his siblings and educated for the clerical field, even though the Loyolas “were not known for their learning: all that was required of one with the family name to make his way in the world was a spirit of enterprise, and there was plenty of that in them all.”^[3] His father sends him to be a page in the court of Ferdinand, but Ignatius has little interest in such a position.^[4] Only three years later, around age twenty-nine or thirty, he is wounded in battle, when “a cannonball broke his right leg and wounded the left.”^[5]

During the painful, nine month process of healing, he requests reading material—books of chivalry being his preference.^[6] But the castle in which he is recovering only has a collection of the lives of saints and a medieval copy of Life of Christ. He takes up and reads these books, often thinking and re-thinking about the contents—comparing these new thoughts with the old, lustful thoughts upon which he used to dwell. He often thinks to himself, “What if I should do what St. Francis did, what St. Dominic did?”^[7] These thoughts eventually evolve into, “I should do what St. Francis did, what St. Dominic did.”

He often vacillates from the old, sinful thoughts to the new God-ward thoughts, noting that the latter gives him peace and comfort, while the former troubles him greatly, even if he relishes a bit in the former. He then realizes that the sinful, lustful thoughts have their origin from a demon, and the thoughts of a spiritual nature have their origin from God.

At this point, from the light or revelation he has received in those books, he “began to think more earnestly about his past life and about the great need he had to do penance for it.”^[8] He confesses to have a vision of “Our Lady,” and is “filled with sheer happiness that lasted many hours. He became conscious of a presence that gave him a total revulsion from his old dissolute life.”^[9]

From this moment on he is never again disturbed with regard to fleshly temptations. His greatest desire is to imitate the lives of the saints, though “he gave no thought to the circumstances, but only promised with God’s grace to do as they had done.”^[10] His desire is to travel to Jerusalem when he is well enough, “performing all the disciplines and abstinences which a generous soul, inflamed by God, usually wants to do.”^[11]

This idea is planted firmly in his psyche due to the pilgrimages to Jerusalem he had read about in Ludolph’s Life of Christ. He wants nothing of a return to court life, but only to live a life of penance, with the intent on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Before Ignatius can travel to Jerusalem, he has to obtain permission from the Pope for such a pilgrimage, as per the ruling of Clement V at the Council of Vienne (1305-14).^[12] He makes a plan in 1521 to travel to the Pope in Rome, set out in 1522, but does not arrive there until February 1523.^[13] During this two-year interval, Ignatius develops a mysticism about his new-found faith. He believes that God has made His felt presence known to him in a very real sense. He admits that once, in prayer, his “understanding was opened and though he saw no vision he perceived and understood many things both spiritual and touching matters of faith and learning.”^[14] Philip Caraman comments:

The illumination was so dazzling that though he had known these things from childhood, they all seemed new to him. He admitted that he could not put into words what he had been given to understand about the creation of the world, the Eucharist, the humanity of Christ and, in the form of concrete images, the Holy Trinity with many different comparisons. It was a total mystical view of the world that he had been given, with a perception of how all things proceeded from God and how they all returned to their Trinitarian origin; and he saw at the same time the way all the mysteries of the Christian faith were interlocked.^[15]

This form of mysticism characterizes the system and society he later founds: the Jesuits. Harvey D. Egan admits that Ignatius is “an incomparable mystic whose mystical and apostolic gifts are really two sides of the same coin.” ^[16] By the word “mystic” or “mysticism,” Egan is not referring to other-worldly experiences or para-psychological phenomena associated with spiritual trances or visions, coupled with severe fasting and prayer or meditation.

According to Egan, Ignatius is apostolic because “he was one of the greatest mystics the Church has ever seen. His apostolic successes are the mystical expressions, the sacramental embodiment, of his radical mysticism.”^[17] Ignatius’ mysticism, in a broad sense, is “the implicit or explicit experience of faith, hope, and love that is rooted in all authentic human experiences.”^[18]

Egan also admits, however, that Ignatius’ mysticism, in a strict sense, includes an “infused contemplation,” obtained through the media of prayer and the “extraordinary grace” of God: “This prayer requires God’s special activity. God gives the person something new: the explicit awareness that God is present and that the person clings lovingly to him. By actual experience the person becomes directly and immediately aware of God’s loving, purifying, enlightening, and unifying presence. The person realizes that something totally new is occurring.”^[19] These mystical experiences are meant to root more deeply faith and hope in Christ, as well as the experiential knowledge of the love of God for an individual, and his or her love for God and for others.

Also, during the interval of time between setting out for and arriving at Rome, in which he claims that Christ Himself appeared to him several times,^[20] Ignatius writes his most famous work, Spiritual Exercises. His book “outlines specially designed exercises that take place over a period of thirty days. The first week is devoted to meditations on sin and its consequences, which is followed by three weeks of meditations on Christ’s life, concluding with his passion, resurrection, and ascension.”^[21] When he reaches the Pope, he is granted permission for his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and arrives there in September 1523. He spends three weeks there, visiting all of the places relevant to Jesus’ life and ministry.

Not wanting to leave, he decides to then return to Spain in order to further his education, where, at age thirty-seven, in 1534, he earns a Master’s degree. While Ignatius is earning his degree, a group of six men became his close confidants. This group “took vows of poverty and chastity and pledged themselves to go to Jerusalem to convert the Turks. If that were not possible, they agreed they would go to Rome to serve the pope.”^[22]

Their plan is to meet in Venice, in order to depart for Jerusalem, but is prevented by a war between Venice and the Turks. So they remain three years in Venice, “preaching and engaging in charitable works, and when they were still unable to go to Jerusalem, they decided to pursue their alternative plan of service to the pope in Rome.”^[23] The era is the mid-1530s, and the Roman Catholic Church is embittered in a Counter-Reformation, opposing Protestant theological reform, while acknowledging the need for moral reform.

Ignatius and his band of like-minded brothers become known as the Society of Jesus, also known as Jesuits. The spiritually transformed followers of Christ are moral, traditionally Roman Catholic theologically, with hearts aflame for the Lord. Pope Paul III (1468-1549) recognizes an opportunity for Church reform through Jesuit disciplines and grants papal permission for them to officially form the Jesuit religious order by 1540. James R. Payton Jr. writes, “The Society of Jesus would become one of the reformed papacy’s most powerful instruments in the Counter Reformation movement and in that regard would go vigorously on the offensive against the Protestants.”^[24]

Payton also eagerly informs the reader that the Society of Jesus is not “spawned or developed as a response to Protestantism.”^[25] This statement demonstrates that there exists those within the Roman Catholic Church before, during, and after the Reformation who, though still theologically Roman Catholic, are zealously opposed to the moral corruption within the Church and proactively affirming the practice of true spiritual disciplines.

But these spiritual disciplines are not to be practiced solely by monks or nuns. Ignatius does not desire for his Order to be monastic. According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, Ignatius “passionately wanted to affirm the value of the world and say that it was possible to lead a fully spiritual life within it—he was, after all, a cultured ex-courtier who had seen more of the world than most Europeans. . . .”^[26] The Society begins to raise money for educating Catholics, establishing its own college, which is “not part of an existing university, and yet which rapidly secured university status from the Pope.”^[27] This move on the part of the Pope was an effort to reform the Church, “converting Europe back to the faith.”^[28]

The Counter-Reformation’s hope for reform by the Jesuits comes at a time during the mid-1540s and 50s when such Reformers as Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer and Calvin are dying. As zealous as was Luther, so are the Jesuits. Payton writes, “Invoking a wartime casuistry of ‘the end justifies the means,’ the Jesuits readily assured Protestant parents who expressed reservation about sending their children to these excellent educational institutions that the Jesuit instructors would not proselytize their children.”^[29]

But that is a lie—a lie which they consider to be a “legitimate deception,” since it could, if their Roman Catholic teachings are accepted by the children—which also holds the potential of affecting the parents as well, and perhaps their friends—lead them back to the one, true Church, and thus place them on the only, true path to salvation, for there is no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic (i.e., Mother) Church.^[30] For all of the hard work of the Jesuits, however, true reform in the Roman Catholic Church is impossible apart from a papacy which desires reform. Had Pope Paul III not also longed for reform, we may have never heard of Ignatius or his Society of Jesuits.

Like Luther, Ignatius is troubled with frequent illnesses throughout his life. By May 1556, he is very ill, though still very active for the growth of his Order. He often reflects on the many spiritual-mystical experiences he encountered in order to cheer his mood. On the eve of July 30, 1556, he eats dinner alone and dies the following morning. Pope Paul IV delivers his eulogy, confessing—and not pejoratively—that “the Society . . . had lost its idol.”^[31] His death is not elaborate, calling for all relatives and close friends in order to depart this life by granting them his last blessings, or anything of the sort. He does not view himself as more worthy than anyone else suffering illness.

During his lifetime, he refuses to have his portrait painted.^[32] But at his death, one of his pupils attempts to capture the essence of his likeness. Many find his character difficult to define. Caraman writes, “He could act on a sudden impulse yet be highly prudent. Though gentle, he could be strong-minded and unyielding when there was opposition to be overcome. Often stern in a paternal manner, he was referred to in Rome as the ‘small Spaniard who limped a little and had such laughing eyes.’”^[33]

The Roman Catholic Church celebrates a feast day in his honor annually on July 31. He is “canonized” by the Roman Catholic Church in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. “Saint Ignatius” is considered the “patron saint of soldiers” by modern Roman Catholics. In the United States there are 28 Jesuit colleges or universities, with two theological seminaries. Ignatius’ legacy consists of the Jesuit Order, as well as his Spiritual Exercises, which is read and practiced by many Roman Catholics as well as some Protestant believers to this day.

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^[1] Philip Caraman, Ignatius Loyola: A Biography of the Founder of the Jesuits (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 1.

^[2] Ibid., 4.

^[3] Ibid., 7.

^[4] Rudolph W. Heinze, Reform and Conflict: From the Medieval World to the Wars of Religion, A.D. 1350/1648, eds. John D. Woodbridge and David F. Wright (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), 264.

^[5] Ibid. Heinze notes that his leg was “initially set incorrectly, and it had to be rebroken and reset twice; the injury left him with a limp for the remainder of his life.”

^[6] The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola, trans. Joseph F. O’Callaghan, ed. John C. Olin (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1974), 23.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] Ibid., 24.

^[9] Caraman, 30.

^[10] Autobiography, 24.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] Caraman, 43.

^[13] Ibid.

^[14] Ibid., 40.

^[15] Ibid.

^[16] Harvey D. Egan, S.J., Ignatius Loyola the Mystic (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987), 19.

^[17] Ibid.

^[18] Ibid., 21.

^[19] Ibid., 23-24.

^[20] Autobiography, 49.

^[21] Heinze, 265.

^[22] Ibid., 266.

^[23] Ibid.

^[24] James R. Payton Jr., Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010), 181.

^[25] Ibid.

^[26] Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 224.

^[27] Ibid., 225.

^[28] Ibid.

^[29] Payton, 183.

^[30] Ibid.

^[31] Caraman, 198.

^[32] Ibid., 199.

^[33] Ibid., 200.