Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491 at the Oratory of the Holy House of Loyola, a citizen of Spain and of the Crown of Castile. The precise date of his birth remains uncertain, with various records placing it at different points across that year. He worked across more than one language, drawing on Spanish, Latin, and Basque in the course of his life and writings.
Before turning to theology and religious life, Ignatius served as a soldier, a career that placed him within the martial culture of early sixteenth-century Spain. His subsequent path carried him to several centers of learning. He studied at the University of Alcalá and at the University of Paris, and his education also included time at the Collège Sainte-Barbe. These years of formal study gave shape to a vocation that would carry him well beyond the Iberian Peninsula.
Working as a Catholic theologian and Latin Catholic priest, Ignatius became the founder of a Catholic religious community, a role that defined much of his adult life. Among his notable works, the Spiritual Exercises stands as the principal text associated with his name. The seriousness with which he approached his theological occupation is reflected in the care he brought to that work, which he produced in the course of his religious formation and ministry.
Ignatius spent his final years in Rome, where the institutional and spiritual work he had set in motion continued around him. He died there on the tenth of August, 1556, in the rooms known as the Camere di San Ignazio. His life had moved from the place of his birth in Castilian Spain through the lecture halls of Alcalá and Paris to the heart of the Catholic world, tracing a path that brought together soldiering, scholarship, and the founding of a religious community in a single, restless arc.
Quotes by Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola's insights on:
Fifth Rule. The fifth: In time of desolation never to make a change; but to be firm and constant in the resolutions and determination in which one was the day preceding such desolation, or in the determination in which he was in the preceding consolation. Because, as in consolation it is rather the good spirit who guides and counsels us, so in desolation it is the bad, with whose counsels we cannot take a course to decide rightly.
Up to his twenty-sixth year the heart of Ignatius was enthralled by the vanities of the world. His special delight was in the military life, and he seemed led by a strong and empty desire of gaining for himself a great name.
He learned by experience that one train of thought left him sad, the other joyful. This was his first reasoning on spiritual matters.
Next it dawned on him that the former ideas were of the world, the latter God-sent; finally, worldly thoughts began to lose their hold, while heavenly ones grew clearer and dearer.
One must wage war against his predominant passion and not retreat until, with God’s help, he has been victorious.
For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.
After you have made a decision that is pleasing to God, the Devil may try to make you have second thoughts. Intensify your prayer time, meditation, and good deeds. For if Satan’s temptations merely cause you to increase your efforts to grow in holiness, he’ll have an incentive to leave you alone.
Above all, remember that God looks for solid virtues in us, such as patience, humility, obedience, abnegation of your own will – that is, the good will to serve Him and our neighbor in Him. His providence allows us other devotions only insofar as He sees that they are useful to us.
God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God’s purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven.