St Ignatius Loyola

We always look for and respect a truly great leader - but how few there are who survive the passage of time.

In our day we have seen the collapse and failure of Communism, Nazism and Fascism. Hitler and Stalin, monsters of cruelty, totally discredited, and Mussolini - a pathetic failure.

By contrast, Ignatius Loyola, the last of twelve children, was born 500 years ago and still today his memory and achievement live on with an impact for good all over the world - 25,000 Jesuits in universities, colleges, parishes, missions, etc. - a prodigious achievement of spiritual genius and organisation.

Let us look hard at the great and unique man who founded the Jesuit Order ... what made him tick, what were the secret springs of his genius?

1. He was a man of unlimited, boundless courage and 'guts'.
2. He had total and unlimited faith in the love and power of Christ, the true, immortal leader - unique and incomparable.
3. His deep love and loyalty to the person of Christ stirred Loyola to deep love, service and action for Christ's Church, whatever its faults and failings.

Courage

As a young officer in the Spanish army he was in the thick of everything, exposed himself to every danger and was inevitably gravely wounded in the leg. The army doctor did not set it correctly, a large section of bone protruded and had to be cut back. No anaesthetics - imagine the pain - but he bore it all and was taken back to the old family manor to convalesce for many months.

Utterly bored, he asked for some novels to read but the only books available were the Life of Christ and some lives of saints. A rather routine, merely nominal Catholic, he reluctantly read these books and a very great grace from God hit him. Like St Paul after the vision of Christ at Damascus, Loyola gradually realised that only Christ is the total, immortal leader whose cause is eternal and whose victory is certain.

Loyola's whole vision of life was suddenly changed and sublimated. He would serve Christ regardless of cost, but to do that he would have to educate himself, as he could only read and write.

So the proud army officer of noble birth humbled himself to go to the local school and sat in a classroom with teenage children to learn the basics of education. After that he went to the University of Paris. No money, so he had to beg his way - what a humiliation for the nobleman, ex-officer and never an intellectual - to study with incredible tenacity to graduate.

Determination, guts, willpower every inch of the way but he did it all for love of Christ. Like St Paul he could say: 'I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me'.

Love of Christ
In the Spanish army Loyola had served under the great emperor, Charles V, Emperor of Germany and King of Spain and its vast empire, and one of the greatest generals of the 16th century - a real leader who dominated Europe.

But compared with Christ, the incarnate Son of God, the total, perfect man, the emperor paled into insignificance.

Christ alone could now command the deepest loyalties and total sacrifice of everything ... hence Loyola's privations, poverty, hard work, humiliations. As with St Paul: 'For me, to live is Christ'. Having embarked on that hard, hazardous enterprise, Ignatius put no limit to Christ's love and power to help him in everything.

Service to the Church

The Church is the extension and prolongation of Christ through time and space. If we truly love Christ, we must also, then, love his Church - in spite of its human weakness, frailty, corruption.

At this time there were several popes unworthy of their high office but Loyola saw beyond the human element of corruption to the divine reality within.

Against all odds, he founded the Jesuit Order to be the pope's 'commandos' anywhere, doing so the hard work of pioneering in missions, universities, etc. Loyola had a genius for dealing with people and his greatest conquest was probably Francis Xavier, the handsome, young Spanish noble, brilliant scholar, worldly and ambitious, who ridiculed Loyola's spiritual vision.

But Loyola worked on him for four years and finally won him over. In one of his last letters Xavier wrote to Ignatius: 'father of my soul, deserving of my deepest veneration'. . Such was the rapport between these two great men.

Vocation

Loyola had been a very routine, nominal Catholic until his grave war injury and long convalescence. He never did things by halves, hence his ultimate and total dedication to Christ, and considering his past record, a most unlikely candidate for the priesthood.
Likewise Xavier: His repugnance for the priesthood was natural enough in such a warm- blooded exhilarating personality but ultimately Xavier renounced everything for Christ.
For us today, the priestly vocations of Loyola and Xavier - recalling their initial deep repugnance - are potent reminders of the power of God's grace in the human soul.
Spirituality
An eminent Jesuit historian, Fr de Guibert, summed up Ignatian spirituality in one succinct phrase: service for Christ - 'notre chef aime passionement'- i.e. our leader loved passionately. Note: loved, not just admired 'passionately' - with all his emotions and heart.

But what separates us from Christ? Sin! Ignatius knew from bitter, personal experience in early manhood (as he admitted to the Portuguese ambassador) the truth of St Paul's warning that 'the wages of sin is death'.

Sin blinds us to reality, deadens the life of faith and wrenches us from Christ - so temptations must be foreseen and avoided. The soldier mentality in Loyola longed for action - great deeds for Christ, not just words and talk.

Hence the constant refrain in Loyola's Spiritual Exercises: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What shall I do for Christ?

And so Loyola prays: 'Lord, teach me to be generous. To give and not count the cost. To fight and not heed the wounds'.

So easy to mutter these words and really do nothing. In the world today, the phrase 'to fight and not heed the wounds' means we must fight always internally to keep the faith and deepen our moral life, resisting temptations, never tossing the Mass and the Church, whatever its limitations, real or imagined.

Loyola envisaged Jesuit universities and colleges producing 'soldiers' for Christ - as priests or dedicated, vital laymen. Not dead wood or lame ducks!

A realist in everything and with the deepest understanding of human nature, its weakness and strength, he explained to Francis Borgia (formerly Prince Duke of Gandia and later a saint and third General of the Order): 'We are called upon to mould, not gold, but clay'.

Having suffered so much himself, he knew all too well the trials and complexities implicit in the battle for Christ. Our Lord warned us we must 'take up our cross daily'. but he also made us this stupendous promise: 'I am with you all days till the end of time'.

Loyola was inspired and stirred to phenomenal deeds by this promise, putting no limits whatever to Christ's love and power to help him at all times to do the humanly 'impossible' - hence the incredibly difficult and hazardous missions to the Far East, Africa, America and South America.

And so, from afar, after 500 years, we very limited mortals salute this imperial man - I say imperial because Ignatius thought and acted on the grand, olympian scale, in terms of empires for Christ.

May we then, today, try not merely to admire Loyola but imitate him ... think and do big things for Christ, take risks for Christ, spurning the timid, myopic mentality of so many in the Church.