He spent three days confessing his life sins, then hung his sword and dagger near the statue of the Virgin Mary to symbolize his break with his old life. In February 1522, Iñigo bade farewell to his family and went to Montserrat, a pilgrimage site in northeastern Spain. During his convalescence he received spiritual visions, so that by the time he recuperated, he had resolved to live a life of austerity to do penance for his sins. In one book by a Cistercian monk, the spiritual life was conceived as one of holy chivalry the idea fascinated Iñigo.
For seven weeks he lay in bed recuperating.ĭuring this time, he began reading spiritual books and accounts of the exploits of Dominic and Francis. He underwent surgeries to reset his right knee and remove a protruding bone. The five-foot-two-inch Iñigo was helped back to Loyola by French soldiers (who admired his courage). In a battle with the French for the town of Pamplona, Spain, he was hit by a cannon ball the size of a fist. He embraced court life with enthusiasm, learning weapons, gambling, and courtly love-he was "a man given to the vanities of the world," he later wrote in his autobiography, "whose chief delight consisted in martial exercises, with a great and vain desire to win renown." He was born Iñigo Lopez de Loyola, to a noble and wealthy Basque family, and sent to the Spanish court to become a page.
Yet Ignatius' little prayer sums up not only his legacy but also his person. In fact, whatever Ignatius touched seemed to be set apart as something special: the order he founded, the Society of Jesus, became one of the most influential of Catholic orders. "Soul of Christ, make me holy." So says the first line of a prayer that Ignatius of Loyola recommends to those who take up his Spiritual Exercises, one of the most influential devotional books in the church's history-it's still being published, and followed, some 460 years after he first conceived it. "Without seeing any vision, he understood and knew many things, as well spiritual things as things of the faith."
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