July 31
Saints of the Day
 

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, 1491-1556, Ignacio de Loyola, Inigo Lopez de Loyola
A real soldier from Guipuzcua, Spain, becomes a soldier of Christ after reading the lives of the Saints, mystic of the Eucharist, founded the Jesuits and the Spiritual Exercises and worked the Counter-Reform with a special forth vow of obedience to the Pope.

    The Crying Saint:
    One of his greatest achievements is the foundation of the Jesuits who today have over 500 universities and colleges, 30,000 members, and teach over 200,000 students each year.
    I believed this great success was due to his spirit of soldier, of obedience, until I read his Spiritual Autobiography, a 600 page book in which he recounts his experiences in the Holy Mass of each day: All the book are short sentences of 10 to 20 lines, explaining for example how today, on Pentecost, I cried for 3 hours before Mass, during the Mass I was crying all the time with love and thanksgiving, and after the Mass I was also having tears all over for 2 or 3 hours... and similar to this is the whole book, day by day...
    And this is the secret of his success, the love to Jesus in the Eucharist!... one of the greatest mystics of the Eucharist.

    In his way to Manresa he had a spiritual experience for about 10 minutes, and during that short time he learned more about God that during his previous 60 years of life, as he relates in his Autobiography... a similar experience St. Thomas Aquinas had... it was not a vision, he heard no voices, but felt in himself the greatness and majesty and mercy of God, who loves me!

    Ignatius was a true mystic. He centered his spiritual life on the essential foundations of Christianity—the Trinity, Christ, the Eucharist. His spirituality is expressed in the Jesuit motto, ad majorem Dei gloriam—“for the greater glory of God.” In his concept, obedience was to be the prominent virtue, to assure the effectiveness and mobility of his men. All activity was to be guided by a true love of the Church and unconditional obedience to the Holy Father, for which reason all professed members took a fourth vow to go wherever the pope should send them for the salvation of souls.

    The Counter-Reformation:
    Luther nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517. Seventeen years later, Ignatius founded the Society that was to play so prominent a part in the Counter-Reformation. He was an implacable foe of Protestantism. Yet the seeds of ecumenism may be found in his words: “Great care must be taken to show forth orthodox truth in such a way that if any heretics happen to be present they may have an example of charity and Christian moderation. No hard words should be used nor any sort of contempt for their errors be shown.” One of the greatest twentieth-century ecumenists was Cardinal Bea, a Jesuit.