SHOWING THE WAY TO GOD
By Fr Chris Horvat SJ
This homily was delivered on 31 July at the Patronal Mass for Saint Ignatius’ College, Adelaide
What words would you use to describe Ignatius of Loyola? What are the first words that come to mind? Are they the words “brave” and “courageous”? No doubt you have all heard the story of his involvement in the battle of Pamplona in Spain in 1521. Pamplona was a fortress city that was threatened by a French army of 12,000 men. The townspeople wanted to surrender to the French, but Ignatius persuaded them to defend the fortress built on the city’s walls. But he had clearly not received the memo from Jesus in today’s Gospel: “What king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with one thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace”.
Ignatius did not stop to think. He had been dreaming of attaining military glory and this was to be his big moment. He must have had a powerful personality to be able to persuade a few hundred townspeople to do battle with an enemy that vastly outnumbered them. The bombardment went on for six hours and succeeded in weakening the wall and breaching the gate. Ignatius rushed to defend the opening with his sword when he was struck by a cannonball, which shattered his right leg and injured the other. Shortly afterwards the garrison surrendered, the victors entered and treated Ignatius with courtesy, tending his wounds, then after two weeks sending him home in a litter to Loyola.
He was thirty years old, and his dreams of achieving heroic feats as a soldier were shattered along with his leg. He now had no option but to stop and think during nine months of convalescence at Loyola.
Ignatius was a dreamer. But his dreams before and after his cannonball moment were very different. Beforehand he dreamed of serving an earthly king, attaining worldly honour, prestige, fine clothes, wooing a noblewoman, preferably a queen. Now under the influence of his reading of the life of Christ and the saints, he began to dream about serving a different kind of master, of doing great things for God, of imitating saints like Dominic and Francis of Assisi. But it took him many years to discern how best to do that.
When able to walk again, he became a pilgrim in search of God’s will for him and walked thousands of kilometres across Spain, France and Italy in pursuit of this. He turned his back on wealth and earthly honours and begged his way. He dreamed of spending the rest of his life in the Holy Land, retracing the steps of Jesus in order to deepen his connection with him. He succeeded in making his way there, but could only stay for three weeks before he was forced to leave because of political sensitivities. So another dream bit the dust and he had to find a new direction.
He returned to Spain, where his new goal was to help souls. He did so by talking to people about God, engaging in what we call spiritual conversation. But he soon realised that he needed more education to be able to do this without incurring the suspicions of the Inquisition, so he went to school in Barcelona, then walked to Paris to study at a university renowned for its method. There he graduated as a mature-age student with a Master of Theology degree.
It was also there that he shared digs with two other, much younger students, Francis Xavier from Spain and Pierre Favre – known to us as Peter Faber – from Savoy in the French Alps. Ignatius came to have a profound influence on them, giving them spiritual exercises he had developed while living in a cave outside the town of Manresa back in Spain, asking them “What have you done for Christ, what are you doing for Christ, what ought you do for Christ?”
Ignatius also fired up a number of other university students, who referred to themselves as friends in the Lord and became the foundation members of a new type of religious order known as the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. They went on to take vows of poverty and chastity, shared everything, served the sick and the poor, were ordained as priests and planned to travel to the Holy Land together. When that dream also bit the dust, they offered themselves in service to the Pope in Rome, who eventually approved the new religious order in 1541.
Ignatius spent the last nineteen years of his life shaping his new order from a little room in Rome, his years of constant travel over. Now he was to travel imaginatively, following the activities of the first Jesuits as they undertook assignments near and far in a world of political and religious divisions. He stayed in touch with them by writing letters, over 7,000 of which survive. That enabled him to keep his finger on the pulse. He continued to be a man of action and ambition, channelling his creativity into one project after another, but only after mature consideration and prudent advice, all the while relying on God’s help. He had learnt the importance of stopping to think and assess how best to tackle the daunting challenges of his day with only a few resources.
Establishing schools for the formation of youth was one of his strategies, resulting in the world’s first international education system. He was patient and tenacious in matters great and small. He never undertook a thing he did not finish, and did not allow himself to be easily defeated. The difficult or impossible never frightened him. Unusually for a dreamer, he revealed immense talent as an organiser and sent Jesuits on missions to Congo, Ethiopia, India, Japan and Brazil, where Christ was unknown. He undertook everything for the greater glory of God.
Ignatius was a passionate man of great heart, one who was able to read the hearts of others with the insight of a psychologist and guide their relationship with God. A natural leader, he was intensely loyal to the Church. At the same time, he was fully aware of its failings, which he strove to address. He had a gift for friendship and introduced a fraternal spirit among Jesuits who came from countries at war with each other. He made a great sacrifice when he sent Xavier, his right-hand man, off to the Indies in 1541, never to see him again. Truly, Ignatius was someone who responded to the challenge Jesus issued at the end of today’s Gospel, giving away all he possessed, including all his energy, so that he could be an authentic disciple of Jesus, after whom he named his order.
Banner image by Jeffrey Pioquinto SJ / Jesuit.Media