“Who do you say that I am?”, Jesus asked his closest companions at the city of Caesarea Philippi. In an article [1] written for Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits Philip Endean, a British Jesuit who died last year at the comparatively young age of 68, suggested that we might approach St Ignatius Loyola by asking a similar question: “Who do you say Ignatius is?” The answer to that question has changed over the years since Ignatius died on this day, 31st July, in the year 1556. A century ago, between the World Wars, the reply might well have been that he was the archetypal soldier-saint, bravely inspiring his troops to an admittedly ultimately futile defence of the Basque border town of Pamplona against a French attack, before being felled by the cannon-ball that led to his conversion. By the fourth centenary of his death, in 1956, Ignatius was being celebrated above all as a mystic, recording his visions of God the Father, Jesus, Mary and the Trinity. Towards the end of the twentieth century a portrait of Ignatius as a business manager ahead of his time emerged, co-ordinating from three small rooms in Rome a global network of Jesuits numbering around 1,000 by the time he died. And today? Many now will first come to know Ignatius as a consummate teacher of prayer, shaping in his Spiritual Exercises a programme that has proved useful in leading countless numbers to recognise more fully the God at work in their own lives and in the wider world.
Ignatius himself dictated a document that has come to be known as his Autobiography [2] (or, perhaps more accurately, his Reminiscences). It only covers in any detail a comparatively small part of his life, from his injury at Pamplona in 1521 to the founding of the Jesuit order some two decades later. But if you wanted to answer the question of who Ignatius is, would this not be the best starting-point? Endean’s article was written to warn against such a fundamentalist reading of this key text. His point is that Ignatius carefully shaped his recollections to highlight God’s actions leading up to the founding of the Jesuits, and presenting Ignatius’s own life as a kind of prototype of Jesuit formation. It wasn’t so much that what he set out there needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, as that a reader would be well-advised to be aware of the purpose behind this document, and the ways in which this purpose (more or less subtly) shaped the story that it told.
So should we simply abandon the Autobiography, or perhaps by laborious scholarship try to get behind it to the “real” Ignatius? Although there is a point in such scholarly endeavour, the truth is that we are always going to be seeing the saint we celebrate today through one lens or another. This evening, in the church of the London headquarters of the Jesuits in Britain, a solemn Mass of the feast will be celebrated. It will also be the 175th anniversary of the opening of the church. So the Ignatius being presented will be the one who “loved the big cities” as an old Latin tag has it, encouraging people leading busy urban lives to cultivate the practice of pausing to recognise the God who walks the streets alongside them. Ignatius does record in his Reminiscences one brief visit to London. In his summer vacation one year while he was studying in Paris, he crossed the English Channel to seek funds for his next year at college, and did better, he says, than he had done in similar visits in previous years to other cities on the continent. Ignatius the successful fund-raiser might be another useful image for those supporting apostolic projects today.
Who then do you say Ignatius is? Soldier-saint, mystic, proto-business manager, spiritual guru, urban fund-raiser? All these and more are true, and all might be profitable pictures for you to ponder as you celebrate his feast. But as you ponder, recall Philip Endean’s insight. How does the picture of Ignatius that you feel most drawn to touch on the concerns of your own life as it is at present? What is it that you currently need from God, such that a consideration of the life of this 16th century Basque nobleman and his own journey with God, might illuminate some aspect of your own journey? Because getting more fully in touch with that would surely be a highly fitting way to mark this particular feast-day.
[1] Endean, Philip, “Who Do You Say Ignatius Is? Jesuit Fundamentalism and Beyond”
Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits19:5 (1987)
[2] This can be found in St Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings Munitiz, Joseph and Endean, Philip (edd)
Penguin Books, 1996, ISBN 9780140433852
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