Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Priest
St. Ignatius of Loyola is the founder of the Society of Jesus in the Catholic Church. Before that, in 1540, he had come a long way in submitting himself to God's will. Iñigo, was his baptismal name, came from a large noble family in the Basque country of Spain, he was the thirteenth child. His ancestors, risking their lives, defended the King of Castile. In his childhood and early youth, he received a religious education, prayed with others at home, and visited the nearby Marian shrine.
In the castle in Arevalo, Iñigo was trained to serve in the royal court. He dreamed then of earthly fame. He wanted to marry a lady of his heart belonging to a princely and even royal family. In his Tale of a Pilgrim, he admitted that his life was disorderly. After some time, he became a knight and risking his life in 1521 he defended the fortress of Pamplona against the king of Navarre and the French. There a cannonball smashed his left leg. He was transported to his family home, where he was recovering with great difficulty. There were days when he was close to death. The turning point came on the feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
During his convalescence, due to the lack of other books, he readily read the Gospels and stories about saints. The Lord Jesus touched his heart more and more, also using his inborn ambition and desire to distinguish himself with something great. He thought to himself: since St. Dominic and St. Francis did so great things for God, why shouldn't I do it too?
One day in 1522, he decided to break away from his vain life for good and belong entirely to Jesus. He gave his knightly garb to a beggar and, wearing his coarse gown, went on foot to the Sanctuary of Our Lady in Montserrat. There he stayed awake all night, as befits a true knight of his Lady. He then received the undying grace of total freedom from temptations in the flesh. Then he went to Manresa, where he lived in the hospital. He served the sick and in his free time he devoted himself to personal prayer.
There he fought a real spiritual battle; he was even tormented by temptation to suicide. He made a confession for several days. He was already taking notes on his meditations and mystical experiences, which later became the framework for his Spiritual Exercises, later approved by the Pope in 1548.
At the nearby Cardoner River, he experienced the grace of seeing "all faith." In one moment, he grasped the most important mysteries of the Christian faith in their interconnectedness. A few years before his death, he said of it that this grace was greater than all other favors received in a lifetime. In Manresa, he wanted all his life to "be with Jesus", the King of the ages, to fight with total dedication under the Banner of the Cross. The desire to follow Jesus led our Pilgrim in 1523 to Jerusalem, but God did not want him to stay there permanently.
Returning to Spain in 1526, he began to study at Alkala. At the same time, he thought the Spiritual Exercises, which had brought him problems with the Inquisition. The judges forbade him to conduct a retreat until he completed his philosophical and theological studies and until he was ordained a priest. So, Iñigo went briefly to Salamanca and then in 1528 to Paris, whereas an adult man (he was over thirty) he studied Latin with the children. There, captivated by the story of the martyr from Antioch, he changed his name to Ignatius. He quickly made his first friends, Bl. Peter Faver and St. Francis Xavier and several other companions with whom he made vows of chastity and poverty on August 15, 1534. A few years later, in 1537, they were ordained priests in Venice and began their apostolic work. Like Ignatius once, they wanted to go to the Holy Land. And when no ship had sailed there for a year, they went to Rome to put themselves at the disposal of the Pope.
On the Day of Christmas, on December 25, 1538, Ignatius celebrated his first Holy Mass. He originally wanted to do this in Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Savior of the world.
To maintain unity in the group of friends devoted to the Lord, they decide to found an order, Ignatius of Loyola was elected the first general. Then he began to write the foundations for the Constitution of the Society of Jesus. He very much wanted the new order to bear the Name of Jesus and to be put at the service of the Holy See. It was characterized by an attachment to the Holy Father, which was extremely important at that time, due to the spreading Reformation. The order was approved on September 27, 1540.
Ignatius was call to heaven on July 31, 1556 to receive his award. At that time, the Order numbered about 1,000 Jesuits. Some of them took part as experts at the Council of Trent. The first Jesuits were active in all corners of the world, undertaking educational and missionary work. The greatest pride of the order was St. Francis Xavier, missionary in India, Japan and the Moluccas. In 1567, the first Pole, St. Stanisław Kostka become a Jesuit. Saint Ignatius was canonized by Gregory XV in 1622. Pius XI proclaimed him the patron of retreats.
In 2013, the first Jesuit become a pope. On March 13, 2013 Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope and chose the Name of Francis.
The most famous prayer written by St. Ignatius of Loyola is:
Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem. Accipe memoriam, intellectum, atque voluntatem omnem. Quidquid habeo vel possideo mihi largitus es; id tibi totum restituo, ac tuae prorsus voluntati trado gubernandum. Amorem tui solum cum gratia tua mihi dones, et dives sum satis, nec aliud quidquam ultra posco. Amen.
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Amen
Commentary on Today Gospel - Mt 13:54-58
In today's Gospel, four brothers of the Lord Jesus are mentioned by name, moreover, His sisters are also mentioned in general terms. Some people conclude that the Mother of God, after the virginal birth of the Son of God, would later have other children.
Well, at least two episodes of the Gospel absolutely exclude the possibility that Mary could have any other children apart from the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus was twelve, Mary goes with Him and with Joseph on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the Evangelist points out that they went on this pilgrimage every year. Well, the Mosaic Law did not oblige women to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, because of their maternal obligations. Mary could afford an annual pilgrimage because she had only one son, Jesus. This is also evidenced by the fact that the Lord Jesus, when he died on the cross, entrusted her to John's protection, because he did not want to leave her alone. This testament of the Lord Jesus would be completely incomprehensible if the Holy Mother had other children, as if some blasphemers wanted.
So why does the Gospel speak of the brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus? Well, in that culture, cousins were also commonly called brothers and sisters. Take, for example, the sentence that "his mother and his mother's sister Mary, wife of Cleophas stood under the cross" (cf. Jn 19:25). Let us note that the name of the Holy Mother's sister is also Mary. Because it is undoubtedly a cousin, not a full sister. Unfortunately, it is sheer blindness that drives some Christians to blaspheme the Holy Mother.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george