308 Jesuits in 3Min - Saints - St Ignatius Loyola Nungi (Ao)

The Man of Desires and Founder of the Society of Jesus: St Ignatius Loyola
The soldier-turned-saint St Ignatius Loyola, is a Man of Desires!
Ignatius was born in the royal Loyola family in Azpetia, in northern Spain, in 1491.
As a youth, his only desire was to serve Spain his country and to please the Spanish King and a princess he admired.
But, in the battle of Pamplona in 1521, a cannonball shattered his leg and so Ignatius was bedridden.
Thank God! Ignatius had no modern gadgets like mobiles or laptops to kill his boredom. The only thing he could do was to read the only books they had at home: “Life of Christ” and “Lives of Saints”
Desiring to serve his new-found King, Jesus Christ, Ignatius challenged himself: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What can I do for Christ?”
Thus, his desire to please the Earthly King and the princess was transformed into a desire to serve Christ the King and imitate the saints.
His initial conversion was deepened with his further experience of God during his stay in Manresa. Its fruit is now the famous spiritual manual, the “Spiritual Exercises”, which has transformed billions of people over the last five centuries
This new Ignatius desired “to help souls” by guiding people to grow spiritually. However, this desire was met with resistance because he was not a priest or a monk with qualifications in philosophy and theology.
So, he decided to master Latin sitting with small children, and study further in Alcala, Salamanca and Paris.
In Paris, Ignatius stayed with two roommates whom we today know as St Francis Xavier and St Peter Fabre. Ignatius along with these and seven other friends, founded the Society of Jesus, which was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540.
Ignatius was unanimously elected the first Superior General of the Society of Jesus, the office he held till his death in 1556.
During his lifetime itself the Society of Jesus grew into more than a thousand Jesuits spread out in five continents, engaged in spiritual, pastoral, educational, intellectual and reconciliatory ministries.
Ignatius’ writings - Spiritual Exercises, Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, his autobiography, his spiritual journal, and his 8000+ letters - are a source of wisdom and inspiration even today.
St Ignatius Loyola, the Man of Desires, is not dead and gone. He continues to live today through the Jesuits, the entire Ignatian family and their friends.
May St Ignatius Loyola inspire us to become persons of desires - always desiring to live for the ‘greater glory of God’.