Ignace de Loyola

Íñigo de Oñaz Loyola , francized in Ignace de Loyola (born the December 24th 1491 with Azpeitia in the Spanish and died Basque Country the July 31st 1556 with Rome) is there the founder and the first Supérieur general of the Society of Jesus - in Latin shortened SJ for Societas Jesu - catholic congregation recognized by the pope Paul III in 1540 and which took a considerable importance in the reaction of the Catholic church with the S, vis-a-vis the shock caused by the Protestant Reform. Author of the spiritual Exercises , he was an extraordinary spiritual adviser. With the head of the Jesuits, it became the spearhead of the fight against the Protestantisme and a burning promoter of the Counter-Reformation.

He was canonized by the pope Gregoire XV on March 12th 1622, at the same time as François Xavier and Therese d' Avila. Its festival is celebrated on July 31st.

Training of Ignace

Eneko (Íñigo in Castilian) was born in the castle from Loyola on the commune of Azpeitia, with 25 kilometers in the south-west of Donostia-San Sebastián in the province of Guipuzcoa, in Spain. Its name, Iñigo, come from Saint Enecus (Innicus), father-abbot of Oña; the name Ignatius was taken later when it resided at Rome.

The last born of a phratry of 13 children, Ignace grows within a family of the Basque minor nobility , allied traditional of the house of Castille. It is only 7 years old when his/her mother, Marina Saenz de Lieona there Balda, died and it ties a strong relation with his father, gift Beltrán Yáñez de Oñez there Loyola. He knows the education of the Spanish great century which hatches in this end of the 15th century. In 1506, at the adulthood, Ignace becomes page of court, then gentleman and secretary with the service of a relative of his mother, Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, treasurer ( contador mayor ) of the Queen of Castille, Isabelle the Catholic. He carries out during ten years a life of Court, like he says it in his Autobiography: Until the twenty-sixth year of its life, he was a man devoted to vanities of the world and mainly he délectait himself in the exercise of the weapons . He binds with the princess Catalina, sister of Charles Quint, sequestered by his mother Jeanne Insane the with Tordesillas.

In 1516, the death of Ferdinand d' Aragon which succeeds Charles Quint involves the reference of Juan Velázquez and thus of Ignace. In 1517, Ignace enters the army of the viceroy of Navarre, recently attached to the Kingdom of Castille (1512). May 20th 1521, whereas it reached the thirty years age, it is found to defend the town of Pampelune against the troops free-Navarreses, which with the support of François I {{er}}, sought to recover the crown of Navarre for the benefit of the family of Albret. Submerged by the number, the Spaniards wanted to go, but Ignace exhorts them to fight. A wounded leg, the other broken by a ball of gun, it is brought back to its castle and “is operated”, but its right leg will remain shorter of several centimetres for the remainder of its life.

Conversion

During its convalescence, fault of finding the famous tales of chivalry of time, it reads many religious books like a Vie of Jesus or the gilded Légende which tells the actions of saints. In a mixture of enthusiasm and anxiety, he sees in dream appearing " to him; Notre-Dame with the Saint Child Jesus " , it rejects " its last life and especially things of the flesh " and any more but does not think of adopting a life of Ermite and of following the precepts of saint François d' Assise and other great monastic examples. It decides to devote entirely to the conversion of the infidels into Holy Land.

After its re-establishment, it leaves in February 1522 the family home to join Jerusalem. On the way, arrived at the Monastery Benedictine of Montserrat, close to Barcelona, he confesses and spends three days in prayers. In the night of the March 24th 1522, in a gesture of rupture with its old life of knight, it hangs his military dresses and its weapons in front of the statue of the Black Vierge. Vêtu of a simple fabric, the home LED bag (as a Catalan), takes again the road of Barcelona.

But, ravaged by its voyage, its badly healed wounds, the asceticism, it spends several months in a cave close to the town of Manresa (French Manrèse) in Catalogne or it practices most rigorous Ascétisme. It carries out until the beginning of 1523 a life of hermit during whom it begins the drafting of what will become the spiritual Exercises .

It then takes as “pilgrim of God” the Holy overland route and, on March 20th, 1523, embarks for the Italy. Blessed with Rome by the pope Adrien VI, it continues its tour until Venice, and arrives to Jerusalem or there remain only three weeks in September 1523, before being requested by the brothers franciscains to leave the country. Again in Italy, crossed by the Spanish and French armies, it is found in Venice and is convinced of the absolute need for studying to teach. After the religious method put at the day in the Exercises , the conviction of the role of the studies will be another of the characteristics of the future Jesuit project. It is of return to Barcelona in March 1524.

Studies

It devotes the eleven following years to the studies, more than one third of what it remained to him to live. It takes again basic courses (grammar and Latin) in Barcelona and, since 1526, it can some to follow enough the courses of philosophy and theology to the university of Alcalá de Henares. Intellectual hearth brilliance of the Castille, this University gathers all the alumbrados and conversos which forms the spiritual climate of this time. At the end of 1527, encouraged by Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Tolède, it joined most prestigious of all: the University of Salamanque. But the attacks sharp which it undergoes in particular on behalf of the Inquisition and of the Dominicains decides it to go to Paris in February 1528.

Its progress in the comprehension of the mechanisms of teaching and its capacity to be dominated intellectually including more scholar that itself by the use of the “understanding”, distinguish it. But its rigorous and whole personality and its reforming attitude create many enemies to him. In Barcelona, it is beaten very severely, and his killed companion, on the instigation the notable ones upset not to be allowed more in a convent that Ignace had recently reformed. In Alcalá, a inquisitor, the Figueroa vicar-general, harasses it constantly suspecting it of it, going until imprisoning it during a few weeks. In Paris, its tests were varied, poverty, disease, charity works, discipline of the college, particularly severe in that of Montaigu, or it resided, because too poor and being unaware of before joining that more “liberal” of the Collège Holy-Bores, or it was publicly marked by Diego de Gouvea, vice-chancellor of the college, enfreindre the rules but it denied and obtained public excuses.

With the University of Paris, Ignace finds himself “in the cauldron of the Renaissance”, in the middle of what Jean Lacouture calls the extraordinary decade which begins in 1525 with the polemic between Erasme ( Of libo arbitrio ) and Luther ( servo arbitrio ), then the creation of the Collège de France in 1530, the publication of the Pantagruel of Rabelais (1532) and finally, Institution of the Christian religion of Calvin (1536. He is received Master are arts on March 13rd, 1533. During this time, having begun its studies from theology, he is laid off in 1534, but he cannot be received doctor, his troubles of health leading it out of Paris in March 1535.

The creation of the Society of Jesus

The wish of Montmartre

In France, Ignace de Loyola gathers around him students of quality resulting from different backgrounds, but all linked by a common fascination for Ignace. He known in particular with the college Holy-Bores, his the first two companions who were Savoyard the Pierre Favre and the Navarrese Francisco Iassu de Aprizcuelta there Xavier known as François Xavier; then, Diego Tease and Alonso Salmerón rejoined it, knowing its reputation of Alcalà; finally, Nicolás Bobadilla and Simón Rodríguez de Azevedo, a Portuguese.

Ignace evolved/moved gradually on the attitude and the discipline that it was necessary. Taking into account criticisms received in Alcalà or Salamanque on the practices of extreme poverty and mortification, it adapted to the life in the city, while directing the efforts of all worms the studies and the spiritual exercises. The bond became very strong with his/her companions linked in the great ideal of living out of Holy Land, the same life as the Christ.

The August 15th 1534, at the conclusion of the celebrated mass with Montmartre in the Notre-Dame crypt by Pierre Favre, ordered priest three months before, the seven pronounce the two wishes of poverty and chastity and the third to go in the two years to Jerusalem to convert the infidels there, at the end of their studies.

They were then joined by Claude Jay, another Savoyard of Geneva and two French: Jean Codure and Paschase Broët. Linked by the charisma of Ignace, the new friends decide more séparer.

The foundation of the order

After having left Paris, it goes six months to Spain then to Bologna, where incompetent to go back to the studies, it devotes himself to charity works waiting until his/her 10 companions join Venice (January 6th, 1537) on the road of Jerusalem. But the war with the Turks prevent them from continuing. They decide to defer one year their engagement, after which they will be placed at the disposal of the Pape. Ignace de Loyola, as the majority of his/her companions are ordered priest with Venice on June 24th 1537. They leave then in close university towns, Ignatius with Pierre Favre and Laynez takes in October 1537 the road of Rome. Ignace, for the city, in Storta, has a vision of God addressing himself to him after having placed it at the sides of Christ: “I will be favourable for you in Rome”.

To Rome, capital of the Papal States, Alexandre Farnèse came into 1534 to be elected pope, under the name of Paul III. It reigns on a capital in crisis, hardly given of the Sac of Rome by the troops of the emperor in 1527, hillock with generalized corruption and sits of a church in crisis, deeply shaken by fulgurating the progression of the Réforme. Paul III quickly seems to see all the profit to be drawn from this new business of erudite, rigorous, just priests and of an immense reforming voluntarism. In November 1538, Paul III, after many contacts with Tease, receives Ignace and his companions come to make their “oblation” with the pope. This one orders to them to work in Rome which will be their Jerusalem. Consequently, is outlined the Society of Jesus or Ordre of the Jesuits .

From March to June 1539, according to the minutes written by Pierre Favre, they discuss form to be given to their action, to have of obedience, cohesion of the group whereas the missionary activity disperses the Jesuits, role in education… In August 1539, Ignace, Codure and Favre write PRIMA Societatis Jesu instituti summa , draft of the constitutions of the Company with some strong points: obedience with a general Employee, the exaltation of poverty, the refusal of the monastic ceremonial, and in particular of the collective prayer and mortifications.

In spite of some oppositions to the Curie, the creation of the Society of Jesus is accepted by the pope Paul III on September 27th, 1540, in its bubble Regimini militantis ecclesiae , which takes again the formulated instituti while limiting the number of profès to sixty.

April 22nd, 1541, Ignace is elected, in spite of his reserves, first Supérieur general of the Society of Jesus then it made with his companions, his profession in the Basilique Saint-Paul-out-the-walls. The Order is consequently made up.

Beginnings of the Society of Jesus until the death of Ignace

The structuring of the Order

Ignace was charged into 1541 to develop the rules of organization of the new company, famous the Constitutions , but it did not start work makes some before 1547, gradually introducing habits, intended to transform itself in the long term into laws. In 1547, Juan de Polanco became its secretary, and with its assistance, it produced a first jet of the Constitutions between 1547 and 1550, while requesting pontifical approval simultaneously to carry out a new edition of the Formula Instituti . The pope Jules III accepted it in the bubble Exposcit Debitum , on July 21st, 1550.

In parallel, a big number of fathers revised the first text, but although proposing only few changes, the following version carried out by Ignace in 1552 was rather different. This version was published and taken the force of law in the Company. Light amendments until its death were introduced by Ignace.

Under the new Jacques general Tease, the IE general Congregation of the company decided to print the text which remained such as it is until XXXIVeCongrégation in 1995.

Missions

August 1st

To fight against the Reform

August 1st it tried to convert Protestants with Catholicism by the word

The posterity of Ignace

Spirituality ignacian

See too

The Autobiography of Ignace de Loyola

The Account is the autobiographical history of Ignace de Loyola such as it told it, between 1553 and 1555, with another Jesuit, the father Louis Gonçalvès da Câmara. At the end of its life, he answered thus at the request of several companions of his entourage in Rome who wished to obtain a spiritual will in the form of account. Ignace hesitated a long time before telling his history, even if he had promised it since 1551.

According to Louis Gonçalvès da Câmara, it is on August 4th, 1553 that Ignace made the decision to carry out his promise. After a conversation on the topic of the vainglory, reports the father da Câmara, “whereas he ate with Juan de Polanco and me, our Father says that very often Maître Nadal and others of the Company had required a thing of him and that he had never decided there; but that, after having spoken with me and to be themselves collected in its room, it had had large a devotion and inclination to do it and had completely decided there”.

This text was then maintained in the files during 150 years, until the Bollandistes publish it in the Acta Sanctorum .

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