Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola was born Iñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola in the castle at Loyola, in the municipality of Azpeitia, Gipuzkoa, in the Basque entities of the Crown of Castile. His parents, Don Beltrán Ibáñez de Oñaz y Loyola and Doña María (or Marina) Sáenz de Licona y Balda, who were of the minor nobility, from the clan of Loyola, were involved in the Basque war of the bands. Their manor house was demolished on the orders of the King of Castile in 1456 for their depredations in Gipuzkoa, with Iñigo's paternal grandfather being expelled to Andalusia by Henry IV. Íñigo was the youngest of their thirteen children. Their eldest son, Juan Pérez, had soldiered in forces commanded by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, but died fighting in the Italian Wars (1494–1559). , in Azpeitia, built atop the birthplace of the saint He was baptized "Íñigo" on honour of Íñigo of Oña, Abbot of Oña; the name also is a medieval Basque diminutive for "My little one". It is not clear when he began using the Latin name "Ignatius" instead of his baptismal name "Íñigo". Historian Gabriel María Verd says that Íñigo did not intend to change his name, but rather adopted a name which he believed was a simple variant of his own, for use in France and Italy where it was better understood. Íñigo adopted the surname "de Loyola" in reference to the Basque village of Loyola where he was born. Soon after the birth of Íñigo, his mother died. Maternal care fell to María de Garín, the wife of the local blacksmith. In 1498, his second eldest brother, Martin, heir to the estate, took his new wife to live in the castle, and she became mistress of the household. Later, the seven-year-old boy Íñigo returned to Casa Loyola. Anticipating his possible ecclesiastic career, Don Beltrán had Íñigo tonsured. Instead, Íñigo became a page in the service of a relative, Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, treasurer (contador mayor) of the kingdom of Castile. During his time in the household of Don Velázquez, Íñigo took up dancing, fencing, gambling, the pursuit of the young ladies, and duelling. He joined the army at seventeen, and according to one biographer, he strutted about "with his cape flying open to reveal his tight-fitting hose and boots; a sword and dagger at his waist". According to another he was "a fancy dresser, an expert dancer, a womanizer, sensitive to insult, and a rough punkish swordsman who used his privileged status to escape prosecution for violent crimes committed with his priest brother at carnival time." In 1509, aged 18, Íñigo took up arms for Antonio Manrique de Lara, 2nd Duke of Nájera. His diplomacy and leadership qualities earned him the title "servant of the court", and made him very useful to the Duke. Under the Duke's leadership, Íñigo participated in many battles without injury. However at the Battle of Pamplona on 20 May 1521 he was gravely injured when a French-Navarrese expedition force stormed the fortress of Pamplona, and a cannonball ricocheting off a nearby wall fractured his right leg. Íñigo was returned to his father's castle in Loyola, where, in an era before anesthetics, he underwent several surgical operations to repair the leg, with his bones set and rebroken. In the end, the operations left his right leg shorter than the other. He would limp for the rest of his life, with his military career over. The religious work which most particularly struck him was the De Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony. This book would influence his whole life, inspiring him to devote himself to God and follow the example of Francis of Assisi and other great monks. It also inspired his method of meditation, since Ludolph proposes that the reader place himself mentally at the scene of the Gospel story, visualising the crib at the Nativity, etc. This type of meditation, known as Simple Contemplation, was the basis for the method that Ignatius outlined in his Spiritual Exercises. Aside from dreaming about imitating the saints in his readings, Íñigo was still wandering off in his mind about what "he would do in service to his king and in honour of the royal lady he was in love with". Cautiously he came to realize the after-effects of both kinds of his dreams. He experienced desolation and dissatisfaction when the romantic heroism dream was over, but, the saintly dream ended with much joy and peace. It was the first time he learned about discernment. In March 1522, he visited the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat. There, he carefully examined his past sins, confessed, gave his fine clothes to the poor he met, wore a "garment of sack-cloth", then hung his sword and dagger at the Virgin's altar during an overnight vigil at the shrine. Íñigo also experienced a series of visions in full daylight while at the hospital. These repeated visions appeared as "a form in the air near him and this form gave him much consolation because it was exceedingly beautiful ... it somehow seemed to have the shape of a serpent and had many things that shone like eyes, but were not eyes. He received much delight and consolation from gazing upon this object ... but when the object vanished he became disconsolate". He came to interpret this vision as diabolical in nature. ==Period of studies==

In September 1523, Íñigo made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the aim of settling there. He remained there from the 3rd to 23rd of September but was sent back to Europe by the Franciscans. He returned to Barcelona and at the age of 33 and attended a free public grammar school in preparation for university entrance. He went on to the University of Alcalá, where he studied theology and Latin from 1526 to 1527. There he encountered a number of devout women who had been called before the Inquisition. These women were considered alumbrados – a group linked in their zeal and spirituality to Franciscan reforms, but they had incurred mounting suspicion from the administrators of the Inquisition. Once when Íñigo was preaching on the street, three of these devout women began to experience ecstatic states. "One fell senseless, another sometimes rolled about on the ground, another had been seen in the grip of convulsions or shuddering and sweating in anguish." The suspicious activity took place while Íñigo had preached without a degree in theology. As a result, he was singled out for interrogation by the Inquisition but was later released. Following these risky activities, Íñigo (by this time, he had changed his name to Ignatius, probably to make it more acceptable to other Europeans) He arrived in France at a time of anti-Protestant turmoil which had forced John Calvin to flee France. Very soon after, Ignatius had gathered around him six companions, all of them fellow students at the university. They were the Spaniards Alfonso Salmeron, Diego Laynez, Francis Xavier and Nicholas Bobadilla, with the Portuguese Simão Rodrigues and Peter Faber, a Savoyard, the latter two becoming his first companions, "On the morning of the 15th of August, 1534, in the chapel of the Martyrium of Saint Denis, in Montmartre, Loyola and his six companions, of whom only one was a priest, met and took upon themselves the solemn vows of their lifelong work." Ignatius gained a Magisterium from the University of Paris at the age of forty-three in 1535. In later life, he would often be called "Master Ignatius" because of this. ==Foundation of the Jesuit order==

In 1539, with Peter Faber and Francis Xavier, Ignatius formed the Society of Jesus, which was approved in 1540 by Pope Paul III. He was chosen as the first Superior General of the order and invested with the title of "Father General" by the Jesuits. In a letter to Francis Xavier before his departure to India in 1541, Ignatius famously used the Latin phrase "Ite, inflammate omnia", meaning, "Go, set the world on fire", a phrase used in the Jesuit order to this day. With the assistance of his secretary, Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Ignatius wrote the Jesuit Constitutions, which were adopted in 1553. They created a centralised organisation of the order, and stressed absolute self-denial and obedience to the Pope and to superiors in the Church hierarchy. This was summarised in the motto perinde ac cadaver – "as if a dead body", meaning that a Jesuit should be as empty of ego as is a corpse. However the overarching Jesuit principle became: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam ("for the greater glory of God"). File:Ignatius Loyola by Francisco Zurbaran.jpg|Ignatius as Superior General File:Ignatius of Loyola, Church of Gesù, Rome, Jan 2013.jpg|Statue of Saint Ignatius in the Church of the Gesù, Rome ==Death and canonization==

By 1553 Ignatius' health had begun to fail, and he decided to dictate a testament of his life to a Jesuit named Louis Gonzalez. The work was later published as an autobiography in 1555. It recounts Ignatius' life during the 1520s and 1530s, starting with his convalescence and religious conversion. Ignatius died in Rome on the 31 of July 1556, probably of the "Roman Fever", a severe variant of malaria which was endemic in Rome throughout medieval history. An autopsy revealed that he also had kidney and bladder stones, a probable cause of the abdominal pains he suffered from in later life. The anatomist Matteo Colombo was present at the necropsy of St. Ignatius. He describes the results in his : From the facts presented, the exact cause of death cannot be established. The stones mentioned in the kidneys, ureters, urinary bladder and gall bladder appear to indicate nephrolithiasis and cholelithiasis. The so-called stones in the veins appear to be thrombosed haemorrhoids. Those mentioned in the colon, liver, and lungs suggest the possibility of a malignant gastro-intestinal growth with metastases to the liver and lungs. Because of the inadequacy of the protocols of the sixteenth century, the exact final anatomical diagnosis on the autopsy of Ignatius cannot be established beyond doubt. Ignatius was beatified by Pope Paul V on 27 July 1609, and canonized by Pope Gregory XV on 12 March 1622. His feast day is celebrated annually on 31 July, the day he died. He is venerated as the patron saint of Catholic soldiers, the Military Ordinariate of the Philippines, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, in his native Basque Country, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antwerp, Belo Horizonte, Junín, and Rome. ==Legacy==

Numerous institutions across the world are named for him, including many educational institutions and Ateneo University institutions in the Philippines. In 1852, Loyola University Maryland was the first university in the United States to bear his name. Other American universities bearing his name include Loyola University of Chicago, Loyola University New Orleans, and Loyola Marymount University. In 1949 he was the subject of a Spanish biographical film Loyola, the Soldier Saint starring Rafael Durán in the role of Ignatius. In 2016, he was the subject of a Filipino film, Ignacio de Loyola, in which he was portrayed by Andreas Muñoz. Ignatius of Loyola is honoured in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 31 July. The Saint Ignatius de Loyola Catholic Church, built in 1905 in El Paso, Texas, is named after him. In India, Loyola College in Chennai is named after him. This college was founded in 1925 by the French Jesuit priest Francis Bertram (originally known as Père François Bertrand), along with other European Jesuits. In India, Loyola School, Jamshedpur is a premier high school offering education in English and Hindi. It was founded in 1947 and continues to be run by Jesuits. ==Genealogy==

Shield of Oñaz-Loyola The Shield of Oñaz-Loyola is a symbol of the Ignatius family's Oñaz lineage, and is used by many Jesuit institutions around the world. As the official colours of the Loyola family are maroon and gold, the Oñaz shield consists of seven maroon bars going diagonally from the upper left to the lower right on a gold field. The bands were granted by the King of Spain to each of the Oñaz brothers, in recognition of their bravery in battle. The Loyola shield features a pair of rampant grey wolves flanking each side of a cooking pot. The wolf was a symbol of nobility, while the entire design represented the family's generosity towards their military followers. According to legend, wolves had enough to feast on after the soldiers had eaten. Both shields were combined as a result of the intermarriage of the two families in 1261. Former coat of arms of the Argentine city, Junín, Buenos Aires used until 1941 bore Loyola shield under the Sun of May and surrounded by laurel wreath. Lineage established the following detailed genealogy of Ignatius of Loyola: ==Gallery==

File:Tomb of St. Ignatius.jpg|Tomb of Saint Ignatius, File:Apoteosis de San Ignacio 1675 20131224.jpg|Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius File:St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) Founder of the Jesuits.jpg| Portrait by Pieter Paul Rubens File:Peter Paul Rubens33.jpg|Visions of Ignatius, 1617–18, Peter Paul Rubens File:Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus and Her Fifteen Mysteries, Loyola and Francis Xavier Kyoto University Museum.png|Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus and Her Fifteen Mysteries. Bottom centre: Ignatius of Loyola (left) and Francis Xavier (right) File:Podroze Loyoli.svg|The journeys of Ignatius of Loyola at different times File:St Ignatius Spiritual Exercises c 1600.jpg|A page from Spiritual Exercises ==Bibliography==