With Christ in Service

Jesuit Lives through the Ages

Patrick Carberry

• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781788122375
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

In an ever-changing and unpredictable world, Ignatius wanted Jesuits to be alert to the needs of people in the concrete circumstances of their lives, and to be free to respond appropriately. Rooted in the practice of discernment and united through the vow of obedience, the Jesuits were to be flexible and creative, going wherever there was ‘the greater need’, always keeping in mind ‘the greater service of God and the more universal good’. This little book tries to encapsulate some of the responses the Jesuits have made through the ages, by focusing on the lives of a few remarkable individuals. The variety is suggestive of the Jesuits’ range of activities: from the hidden ministry of John Sullivan to the public protests of Dan Berrigan; from the unimaginable journeys of Francis Xavier to the theological insights of Karl Rahner; from the heroism of Edmund Campion to the inspiring leadership of Pedro Arrupe. There are many other striking stories that need to be told, of course, that are not included here: the mission to Ethiopia in the sixteenth century; the initiatives of the Jesuits in China, the South America and present-day Canada in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the vast educational network that made the Jesuits ‘the schoolmasters of Europe’; and the numerous Jesuit astronomers, scientists, artists and poets who have enriched human learning and culture down to the present day.

Part One

Beginnings

May Christ deign to be favourable to these our tender beginnings.

(Formula of the Institute 9)

~ 1 ~

Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556)

Patrick Carberry SJ

Try to keep your soul always in peace and quiet, always ready for whatever our Lord may wish to work in you. It is certainly a higher virtue of the soul, and a greater grace, to be able to enjoy the Lord in different times and different places than in only one.

– Ignatius Loyola

The sixteenth century in Europe was a time of rapid change. Unimaginable discoveries were being reported from distant places. New ideas, rooted in classical antiquity, were spreading from Italy, transforming the very assumptions that underpinned people’s lives. Stories of religious insubordination were filtering through from the north. The world was becoming an unfamiliar place.

Ambitious Youth

Rumours of these developments would have reached the Loyola household from time to time, but they probably had little impact on life there during Ignatius’s early years, for he lived in a place largely untouched by the outside world. Tucked away in their modest castle in the remote Basque region of Spain, the Loyolas were a family of minor nobility. Ignatius – or Iñigo, to give him his baptismal name – was the youngest of thirteen children. Following a basic education, he spent the years of his early adulthood (1507–21) as a courtier in the household of the royal treasurer and, later, in the service of the Duke of Nájera. His ambition was to become a knight one day, like the heroes of old whom he liked to read about in the popular romances of the time.

Preparation for this privileged way of life was arduous. It involved extensive training in horsemanship, archery, swordsmanship and the tactics of warfare, as well as learning the strict etiquette of courtly life. Ignatius committed himself wholeheartedly to the task, satisfied with nothing less than excellence. In his spare time he enjoyed jousting, carousing and dancing. Although small in stature, he was well built and, knowing that he was attractive to women, he dressed smartly in tight-filling hose and doublet. He was also haughty and arrogant, and from time to time he became embroiled in violent skirmishes. On one occasion he was charged with a serious offence before the law. What this offence was we are not certain, but he only managed to escape conviction on a technicality.

Radical Transformation

The story of Ignatius’s transformation from ambitious knight to penitent beggar is well known. In the region of Navarre, south of the Pyrenees, tensions had been growing between France and Spain, and in 1521 the French attacked the city of Pamplona. Foremost among its defenders was Ignatius. At his insistence, the Spaniards continued defending the fortress against the vastly superior enemy forces. It was only when Ignatius was disabled by a cannonball, severely injuring his right knee, that the Spaniards offered to surrender.

The victorious French carried Ignatius to their camp, where they treated him with courtesy and attended to his wounds before returning him to his family a very ill man. In Loyola, it was discovered that his knee had been badly set, however, and it was found necessary to break it again and reset it. As this was happening, Ignatius began to grow weaker. His health deteriorated alarmingly, and he was eventually advised to prepare for death. Then, against all odds, his condition improved. As he began to regain his strength he was shocked to notice that a bone below his knee was protruding in an ugly manner. Thinking, no doubt, of the fancy hose he would be wearing in court, he asked that the offending piece be cut away. Although he was warned that this would be more painful than anything he had so far suffered, he still persisted. He endured all this butchery, carried out without an anaesthetic, as only a truly heroic knight would: without showing any sign of pain other than to clench his fist, as he himself attests.

Even after the worst was over, Ignatius was confined to bed for several more months because another problem had been identified. One leg was found to be shorter than the other – a severe handicap for a would-be knight – and attempts were made to stretch it by hanging weights from it. Left alone with nothing but the nagging pain and his own thoughts, Ignatius found the days endless. In the absence of more exciting reading, he had to make do with the only two books available: The Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony and a volume containing stories of the saints’ lives. Despite his initial reluctance, Ignatius found himself drawn imaginatively to what he was reading. In the quiet of his sickroom, he began to envisage the possibility of committing himself to a totally new way of life, in the service of a different master. If Francis could do it, he wondered, and if Dominic could do it, why couldn’t he? Yet, he was torn. When not thinking of imitating the saints, he found himself fantasising about a certain lady he longed to impress and win for himself by poetic outpourings and feats of arms. Both attractions were strong; which could he trust?

Gradually, Ignatius became aware of different reactions within himself. When thinking of the lady he hoped to woo, he experienced great satisfaction at the time, but afterwards he felt dull and empty. On the other hand, thoughts of following Jesus not only brought him joy at the time, but long after the thoughts themselves had ceased he could feel lingering traces of that joy. He began to see that some attractions had an enduring quality about them, while others lacked any real depth. He began to realise, as he says in his memoir, ‘that some thoughts left him sad and others happy’. It was his first exercise in the discernment of spirits.

A Different Path

By the time he left Loyola in 1522, Ignatius had determined to turn his back irrevocably on his past life and commit himself to the following of Jesus. He wasn’t sure what that might involve, except that he wanted to go to Jerusalem as a beggar. To satisfy his concerned family, he reluctantly accepted the mule they offered him and set out on the long trek eastward towards Barcelona. On the way, he arrived at the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat, where he made a lengthy confession to one of the monks, gave away his fine clothes in exchange for a rough pilgrim’s garment and abandoned his mule into the care of the monastery. Without prestige or money, he was now truly a beggar, limping his way through the Catalan countryside.

Shortly after Montserrat, Ignatius arrived in the small town of Manresa, where he interrupted his journey for ten months. There he was given a room in a hospice and, later, in the Dominican priory, but he spent much of his time, when not begging, in prayer and penance in a small cave nearby. Despite his sincere confession in Montserrat, Ignatius soon found himself tormented by remorse at his previously dissolute life and, unable to shake off these thoughts, he entered a phase of bitter scruples. Unable to find any peace, and being close to despair, at one point he even contemplated suicide. And then, something happened! Sifting through his moods and feelings, he began to see that his ceaseless fretting over the past was prompted not by God, but by ‘the enemy of our human nature’. It was another moment of discernment, and it awoke him from his anxiety ‘as if from a dream’.

A Vision Shared

Freed from his obsession, Ignatius found himself flooded with light and joy once again. His previous torment was now replaced by extraordinary mystical experiences of the kind that would recur for the rest of his life. In recounting these events in later years, Ignatius emphasised how they helped him to see the world and his faith in a new way: ‘The eyes of his understanding began to be opened’, he says, and he viewed everything afresh ‘with interior eyes’. God, he believed, was teaching him like a patient schoolmaster might teach a recalcitrant child, leading him to a totally new appreciation of the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist and how God is present in the whole of created reality. Aware of the precious nature of these gifts, Ignatius began to note down what he was learning and how God was teaching him.

Inevitably, in this small town, the new beggar became a source of curiosity. Though beggars were not uncommon, there was something about this one that made him different. He was said to pray for hours on end, and it was known that at the end of each day he gave away anything he had left over. While most of the time he said little, he listened with complete attention when anyone talked to him, and when he did speak his words had a strange power to move the heart. It wasn’t long before local people began to come to him, pouring out their souls and seeking his guidance. Ignatius soon discovered that the jottings he had made of his own spiritual experiences were helpful for other people also, and he began to gather these jottings together in a more orderly fashion. Many years later, following much revision and many additions, they would become known as The Spiritual Exercises.

By the time he left Manresa, ten months after his arrival, Ignatius had begun to modify his unkempt appearance, in order to be more approachable to people coming for his help. While continuing to beg as before, and still on his way to Jerusalem, his hopes were now becoming clearer: he wanted ‘to help souls’, as he put it himself. Indeed, ‘helping souls’, in the most inclusive meaning of the words, would increasingly become the guiding principle of his life.

Another Beginning

From Barcelona, Ignatius crossed to Rome, and from there he went north to Venice, the gateway to the Holy Land. Having arrived by ship in Jaffa, his first sight of Jerusalem brought him ‘a joy that did not seem natural’, and as he later visited each of the holy places that same intense joy was renewed. It was Ignatius’s intention to remain in the Holy Land, but when he mentioned this to the Franciscans, who were the guardians of the holy places, they demurred. The Provincial explained that life in the Holy Land was dangerous and that the friars couldn’t assume responsibility for his safety. Ignatius replied that he was unafraid of imprisonment or death, and that he intended to stay. Exasperated, the Provincial warned him that he had the power to excommunicate anyone who refused to obey his orders. Such a prospect was too much for Ignatius, and he agreed to leave.

Bitterly disappointed, Ignatius set sail for Venice once again, trying to figure out where God was now leading him. His desire to ‘help souls’ was growing stronger all the time, but as he reflected on his experience he became aware of a serious inadequacy in himself. Despite the extraordinary illuminations he had received in Manresa, he realised that he had only a limited grasp of ordinary human learning and little ease of expression. To be truly effective, he decided, he needed to address this lack. And so began, at the age of thirty-three, a new phase of his life that would last for another eleven years: that of a student.

The Middle-Aged Student

Back in Barcelona in 1524, Ignatius enrolled in a class of young boys studying Latin. It must have been a strange sight, this grown man in beggar’s clothes, his hair already receding, conjugating verbs and declining nouns in a class of youngsters. Not surprisingly, study didn’t come easily to him, and Ignatius found himself frequently drawn away from the boring lessons by lofty spiritual thoughts and moving insights. Reflecting afterwards on these experiences, however, he came to the conclusion that if God wanted him to study Latin, such distractions, despite their appearance, could not also be from God. Acting on this moment of discernment, he approached his teacher, promising never to let his attention wander in this way again. From then on the temptations ceased.

After two years in Barcelona, Ignatius was ready for his university studies, but once again his plans were thwarted. First in Alcalá and later in Salamanca, Ignatius tried to settle down to the undergraduate regime, but without success. In both places, he found the programme somewhat chaotic and unstructured, and instead of studying he spent much time in spiritual conversations and teaching Christian doctrine at street corners, sometimes to large groups. Inevitably, these activities attracted the attention of the Inquisition, who wondered about the credentials of this uneducated layman, and suspected him of heresy. After imprisonment and interrogation, and following scrutiny of his Spiritual Exercises, he was cleared of any suspicion but, in each case, restrictions were imposed on his freedom to speak on matters of faith. Ignatius decided it was time to make a fresh start, this time in the premier university of its day, the Sorbonne in Paris.

Ignatius spent seven years at the University of Paris (1528–35), where he found the structured approach to learning suited him well. To concentrate better on his studies, he modified his begging habits and was more selective in ‘helping souls’. In the Collège Sainte-Barbe, he shared a room with two other students: Francis Xavier, a Basque like himself, and Pierre Favre, from Savoy in France. Favre was a gentle soul, insecure and scrupulous, and he and Ignatius quickly warmed to each other. Xavier was different. Fiery and ambitious, he was initially suspicious of this reformed knight with his radical views, but eventually he too fell under the spell of Ignatius. All three are now saints.

As before, Ignatius’s radical lifestyle and teaching aroused controversy and opposition in Paris, both among the staff and students. He was determined this time, however, that he would not be distracted from his studies, and in 1534 he was awarded the prestigious degree of Master of Arts. More significantly, during his years in Paris a small group of students, beginning with Favre and Xavier, gathered around him and began to form a loose association of like-minded friends. They all made the Spiritual Exercises at different times, and on 15 August 1534, the seven of them gathered for Mass in the little church of Saint Denis in Montmartre, then a small village just outside Paris. The celebrant was the newly ordained Pierre Favre, the first priest among them. As Favre held up the host at communion, each of them in turn committed himself by vow to a life of poverty, and to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They added a qualification, however: if after a year’s wait in Venice it proved impossible to depart for the Holy Land, they would instead go to Rome and put themselves at the service of the Pope for him to send them wherever he wished.

Varied Fortunes in Rome

After a visit to Loyola, undertaken on his doctor’s advice, Ignatius set off for Venice, where the companions had arranged to gather in the hope of setting sail for the Holy Land. The little group, which now included three new members, spent their time in prayer, looking after the sick and abandoned, giving spiritual direction and preaching at street corners. For Ignatius this was a time of profound happiness, when he experienced a return of the most fervent consolation. It was also during this time that he was ordained priest, along with several of the others.

Unable to find a ship that would take them to the Holy Land, in 1537 Ignatius and his companions set out for Rome, as planned, to put themselves at the service of the Pope. On the way, they paused to pray in a small church at La Storta, on the outskirts of Rome. There Ignatius had a vision which he understood to be God’s response to his deepest desire from the time of his conversion. He understood in a definitive way ‘that God had placed him with his Son’ as his companion and fellow-worker, and that God would be favourable to the little band in Rome. Strengthened by this renewed conviction, he and his companions arrived at their destination.

When they reached Rome, the reputation of the group as ‘reformed priests’ had gone before them, and the Pope welcomed them warmly. With their prestigious degrees from the University of Paris, he authorised them to teach theology in the university, as well as to hear confessions and preach in the city’s churches. As before, they had special concern for those on the margins of society, including orphans, prostitutes and victims of the plague. ‘Helping souls’ meant caring for the whole person.

All seemed to be going smoothly when, once again, suspicions and slander threatened to undermine their work. Rumours circulated – the most vicious so far – that Ignatius had been condemned by the Inquisition in Spain and Paris, and that he was a Lutheran in disguise. Ignatius faced the slander head-on. In an audience with the Pope, he gave him a detailed account of all the investigations that had b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword Leonard Moloney SJ
• PART ONE: BEGINNINGS
• PART TWO: SENT ON MISSION
• PART THREE: TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
• About the Contributors