IGNATIUS LOYOLA: HIS PERSONALITY AND HIS SURROUNDINGS, FROM CRADLE TO KNIGHTHOOD
OF all romantic stories, few are more romantic than that which we have to tell. The arch-Jesuit’s early life was almost as remarkable as the career of his notorious Society. But one who could devise and organize a company which should out-Rome Rome herself, must be a man of no ordinary mold.
Spain―that most Roman Catholic of all Roman Catholic countries―was the birthplace of our hero. In a feudal castle, owned by the aristocratic family, Loyola, and which towered between the two small towns, Azcoitia and Azpeitia, in the province of Guipuzcoa, on the Bay of Biscay, a seventh son was born to Knight Bertram in the year 1491. Little did his parents guess what a destiny awaited their unconscious infant son! Little did Christendom dream what vast issues to herself lay wrapped up in the cradle that contained Don Innigo Lopez de Ricalde―the child Ignatius!
In spite of his parents’ high-born lineage and titles, no extensive property belonged to his family beyond two castles and the land surrounding them, unless a quiver full of children, of whom Ignatius was the youngest, be considered Sir Bertram’s fortune! As a boy Ignatius showed unmistakably that he had talents, and intended to use them. His brain was not, however, over-taxed by an elaborate education. Beyond learning to read and write in his mother tongue, the uncle who partially adopted him for the greater part of his childhood, did not consider it necessary to instruct him, save in such accomplishments as fencing, dancing, and playing on the mandolin. At fourteen years of age it was considered time that his future course should be decided. His father, apparently a stranger to all religious impressions, sought for his boy a more brilliant career than the cloister, and accepted with alacrity the offer of a distant connection, the Duke of Majera, to obtain for his son a situation as page at the court of Ferdinand V. and Isabella of Spain.
At the court Ignatius received the finishing strokes of his education as gentleman and knight. He became a favourite, and gained the flattering reputation of being an agreeable, brave, self-sacrificing, first-rate “caballeros,” who, although conceited and high-spirited, yet never broke his word. There was something exceedingly attractive about the well-knit figure, the broad, open forehead, the grey eyes, the fine Roman nose, and the gallant bearing of the youth. He soon won popularity in the brilliant and luxurious court circle.
But his was a purposeless life, and it became intolerably tedious to his ardent nature. Seized with a craving for military distinction, Ignatius determined to become a soldier. He confided his ambition to Duke Roseta, gained his sympathetic ear and helping hand, and left the enervating atmosphere of the Spanish court for the barracks. As an officer, though gay and profligate like his comrades in camp, he was foremost at any point of danger. His systematic study of the art of war, and his practical knowledge on the field itself, proved to be of priceless value in after-life, though he little realized their worth in his soldier days. The future “general” of the “little battalion” learnt no tactics or maneuvers in vain!
Just at this time there were great opportunities for the young officer to acquire fame. For ten long years both Charles V. of Spain and Francis I. of France had been striving to become master of Europe. The hopes of Ignatius ran high. Before long his worth would be recognized, and he would win a great name.
But in a moment these dreams vanished! In 1521 the defense of the citadel of Pampeluna against the French was entrusted to him. At the critical moment, however, Ignatius fell, his right leg shattered by a cannon ball, his left foot crushed by a crumbling wall. His men lost courage and surrendered unconditionally. The French commander generously granted Ignatius his liberty without ransom, and had him removed carefully to the ancestral castle on the Bay.
The broken limb, which was beginning to join, was displaced by the movement to which he was subjected on the journey, and the surgeons advised breaking it again and resetting.
The unflinching spirit of Ignatius was more than equal to enduring the pain this involved. While his sisters were shedding tears of pity he wore a smile, and not a single sound escaped his lips. A long illness, however, followed, and he was brought almost to the gates of death. On recovering, what was his dismay to find that his limb was not only shortened, but distorted by an unsightly projecting piece of bone! This was too provoking for one so vain. He insisted that the detestable piece of bone should be sawn off, and then he himself contrived an iron stretcher by means of which the shrunken muscles of his leg should be lengthened. It was of no use. Ignatius, in spite of his heroism, was a cripple. He saw in his mirror, instead of the sprightly figure and face of a cavalier, the wrinkled brow, bald head, and drawn features of a prematurely old man―lame for life!
Mortified that with his goodly presence, flattery and admiration, as well as the hope of military glory, had vanished, and that the lovely Donna Isabella Rosella had already turned from the courtship of a cripple, a complete and sudden change took place in his mind. His keen ambition, if thwarted in one direction, should take another. Ignatius an object of pity―of contempt? Never! If he could not be a general, he would become a saint.
During his long illness, friends had endeavored to make him forget his weariness by the loan of religious books. For the first time he had read the extraordinary adventures narrated in the “Flores Sanctorum” (Flowers of the Saints). His imagination and enthusiasm had been fired, and he now resolved to make the Virgin Mary queen of his heart, and by her help to become a second Januarius. He would gain power, heal diseases, acquire the magic blessedness of passing through blazing fire uninjured, and even conquer hell itself! He would strictly imitate the behavior of these holy people until Mary should herself consecrate him as her saint.
His first act towards the coveted end was to clothe himself in filthy garments. Leaving his face unwashed, his hair uncombed, and fasting until he fainted, he would frequently, as he afterwards narrated, receive visions of the Virgin and saints.
That the former brilliant warrior should become a complete fool, as they thought, roused the indignation of his family. His brother remonstrated with him, but Ignatius was not a man to be laughed out of his course. He would not give up the project he held so sacred, and left the Castle Loyola. He framed an excuse that he was riding out to meet the Duke of Majera, and made off to the “miraculous” shrine of Mary at Montserrat, in Catalonia.
Ignatius arrived there in March, 1522. Meeting a beggar by the way, he exchanged his knightly clothing for a long coat of coarse sailcloth and a pair of sandals. He retained his sword and dagger, as we shall see. Then, slinging a rope round his waist, and attaching a gourd to it for a flask, with staff in hand he proceeded to visit the hermit Clanon. For three days he knelt before him in confession. This done, he flogged himself until the blood came, as chastisement for his previous worldly life. Then he kept a solemn night watch before the chapel of the Queen of Heaven; and, in token of devoting himself completely to her service as “Knight of the Virgin,” he hung up his sword and dagger beside her altar.
Following this, as part of his program for obtaining sanctity, came the plan of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But Ignatius, anxious that the world should stand amazed at works of penitence and self-inflicted tortures never before witnessed or heard of betook himself to the hospital at the little town of Manresa, close to the port from which he intended in time to sail for the Holy Land. There his companions were beggars and the sick. He would lie upon the bare ground at night, and flog himself publicly with his iron chain girdle three times in the day. He refused all food except the bread and water he begged on the road. He gained much the same notoriety as might be expected under similar circumstances in the present day―a plentiful bespattering of mud and refuse from street boys. Yet this was greatly to his satisfaction; it was a proof that his body was becoming truly mortified.
Only a few months, however, of this mortifying notoriety passed. His noble birth was found out by chance, and reverent curiosity took the place of contempt—people flocked to see the holy man who was voluntarily inflicting so much misery upon himself. This did not at all gratify Ignatius, and, fearing that public notice would make him proud, he withdrew to a cavern outside the town, where by long fasts, severer and more frequent lashings with the iron scourge, and by hours of prayer upon his bare knees, he sought to gain holiness. No wonder that between his fainting fits he should be visited with marvelous apparitions! The wonder is that men should be found who believed in such visions as those which were afterwards related in the only volume Ignatius Loyola ever wrote.
In “Holy Exercises” his readers are told that during an ecstasy Ignatius saw the Holy Trinity in the form of three piano notes, closely bound together, hanging upon a stalk; and that in another, the Wafer became transformed into the true Body of Christ before his eyes!
The weakened condition of body into which Ignatius had brought himself might have effectually terminated all his revelations had not the dying “Knight of the Virgin” been accidentally discovered in his cave. When Ignatius regained consciousness he found himself once more under the care of priests and nuns in Manresa hospital. There, mind and body quickly recovered tone, and the conviction dawned upon him―strengthened by the assurance of his confessors―that it might be advantageous to his eternal welfare if he would now endeavor to lead others to repentance, and that his mission was to convert the heathen. Consequently he must reserve some amount of physical strength and health, and, perhaps, preserve a slightly more prepossessing appearance. With his usual vigor of determination his plans were made, and “To Jerusalem and Palestine to convert the Turks!” became his watchword.
Throwing off his coarse cloak, and reducing the length of his hair to more correct proportions, in the year 1523 he set out from Barcelona as a missionary to the heathen. He begged his passage money on board the ship that bore him as far as Gaeta, on his way to the Holy Land. “Such changes,” writes an historian, “took place in the mind of Don Innigo Lopez Loyola in the short space of one year. And,” he adds satirically, “one sees from this what enormous results may be brought about by a badly-mended broken leg!”