Saint Ignatius Loyola

AT the end of March 1535, Ignatius left his associates to the direction of Peter Favre, and took horse Spainwards. This unusual indulgence was due to the weakness caused by his austerities. Convinced though he had been of his unwisdom in that extreme Manresan asceticism, his impetuous and sanguine spirit could not resist fresh excess of penitential ardour when his health seemed reestablished.

It was but a flying visit. How much had happened since the Inquisition drove him forth from the Peninsula! Don Martin, his brother, with two younger brothers and two nephews (of whom one, Antonio de Araoz, afterwards joined the Society, while the other, Millan de Loyola, also joined but died prematurely) awaited him at Loyola Castle. Though they sent an escort to meet him, and did their best to engage his residence with them, they failed. He went on to Azpcitia; and only one night during his sojourn there was spent under the ancestral roof That was when his brother's wife. Dona Magdalena, besought him by the Passion of Our Lord. Yet he was not without natural solicitations. In after days he confessed to a youthful novice that a picture of the Virgin in his prayer-book used to perturb him: in the tender face he saw a likeness to Dona Magdelena, and his heart went out towards Loyola. " Childishness! " said the unbending Saint; and he pasted paperoverthe picture. With the picturevanished the temptation. Was it indeed "temptation,'* one asks? It is a hard matter to be sister-in-law to a Saint!

His foot was scarce set in Azpeitia before he began to preach. Nor only to preach. The journey had improved his health; and at once the unrestrainable man renewed his austerities. He was resolute in forbidding to his disciples such trials of their constitutions; but his precept was certainly better than his example. Perhaps he had grounds for avoiding his brother's house; since even in Azpeitia Don Martin at once opposed his preaching. There would be no hearers, said Martin. Let there be but one, answered Ignatius, and it would be enough. But folk flocked to hear him, till he was driven from the town; and then in the country men swarmed up the trees to listen to these unpremeditated simplicities of a wanderer's fervid speech. One detail during these discourses brings to mind a Saint of very different character. Yet in this detail Augustine and Ignatius join hands across the centuries: we recall Augustine's boyish orchard-robbing, and the sternness with which he regarded it after his conversion. Among the reasons which had drawn him back to Spain, said Ignatius, was unceasing remorse for the scandal given by his early years. Daily he asked God's pardon; now he asked theirs. Nay, justice to a guiltless man compelled him home. Listening to him stood a man who had suffered fine and prison for orchard-robbery done by Ignatius and his 'boycomrades. The Saint proclaimed his own guilt and his victim's innocence, and made over to the man his two farms, as public reparation.

He attacked the dissolute life of the clergy; he attacked sumptuary ostentation in the laity of cither sex, and he attacked indelicate female dress. As in Savonarola's Florence, impressible women burst into tearful penitence, cast away their ornaments and reformed their attire. Dissolute women performed works of piety, and strove to convert their companions. Best of all, he founded an association for private relief of the shy poor, ashamed to proclaim their poverty, endowing it from his own possessions, with administrators selected from the chief people of the place: a similar association yet exists in Italy. He attacked gambling, a southern passion then as now. Your Spaniard would pray for success at the gaming-table, and render pious thanks for his winnings The astonishing divorce of religion from morality— nay, alliance of religion with immorality — so unthinkable to the northern mind, has always been and still is a quite natural thing to the child-like southern temper. It feels, not reasons; and is capable of amazing self-deception. Calderon portrays his Bohemian women praying the Madonna for good luck in their rogueries. But for three years cards and dice fled from Azpeitia, at the bidding of Ignatius, as did snakes from Ireland at the bidding of Patrick. Less docile than the snakes, dice and cards were not long in finding their way back. One picturesque custom is recorded to his initiative; and for this, also, he provided money. Each noon the bells rang; and at sound of the bell folk prayed for such as were living in deadly sin. At even, too, prayers were said for the souls of the Dead; but this custom he did not originate, he only revived. The Confraternity of the Most Holy Body of Our Lord, yet surviving at Azpeitia, Ignatius founded some five years later by means of a letter from Rome.

Beyond these matters, many wonders are recorded of him during this Azpeitian stay. But we confine ourselves to the plain things, showing that Ignatius, like Savonarola or Francis of Assisi, was a practical preacher, dealing with the homely matters of the daily life of his hearers. Ilis manner was no less simple and immediate; trusting, like Wesley and all successful evangelists, to the force of his personal sincerity. Let not the comparison surprise, for the human qualities which go to effectual popular appeal are one within the Fold and without.

Three months Ignatius gave to his native place;

then he must be about the larger business which had brought him to Spain. His health was again restored, despite work which might have exhausted a sound man. With brother Martin he rode to the Biscayan border; there parted from him, and resumed his favourite habit of going afoot after its compulsory disuse. One by one he visited the homes of his young followers — at Navarrese Obanos, at Almazan, at Segovia, at Toledo. Everywhere the families of the youths were slow to permit the required renunciation of property; everywhere he none the less gained his end. The nine-year-old Philip II. saw the traveller, whom the nurse bade her royal charge note and ask his prayers. "That," said she, "is a Saint.'' Which shows that the prophet, all humble as he was, no longer lacked honour in his own country. At Segorbe, that Juan de Castro who had once designed to be his disciple encouraged him to proceed, declaring that his design was of God. Juan was then a Carthusian novice in Holy Orders — another link between Ignatius and the Order of his special affection. He had journeyed aside from Valencia to consult Juan, and to Valencia he returned, embarking thence for Genoa. His Spanish interlude was played, and he was for Italy, the foreordained land of his life-work. Little he guessed it. Jerusalem was still his purposed goal, as when he took ship for Italy so many years ago, after Manresa; and he had no idea but what this visit was to be a modified repetition of the last, when his little army should have joined its General, and they should have gained their permit from the Pope.

As usual, there was a dangerous storm, through which they won to Genoa. No less according to custom, over the Apennines to Bologna were fresh troubles. Lost, on the verge of a precipice, with a torrent below, he clambered on hands and knees, clinging to juts and the grass of the clefts; and, scarce coming through with life, came ill into Bologna. Then he slipped over a bridge into a moat as he entered the town; none gave alms to to the dripping, slimy, battered figure; nay, the urchins screeched after it; but the Spanish College sheltered him and tended him back to strength. Venice he re-entered at the close of 1535, and there he resumed his theological studies, and, of course, evangelised. The City of the Sea soon gave him three more recruits for his company — Diego and Esteban d'Eguia and Diego Hozes: again, one notes, Spaniards, though recruited in Italy. The Eguias were newly returned from Ignatius*s beloved Palestine; and, in after years, when Diego was his confessor, Ignatius used to say: " In Heaven we shall see Padre Diego fifty yards above us, so that we shall scarce know him.'* Among the Saint's many Venetian conquests was Pietro Contarini, bishop to be, but more noteworthy because of his cousinship with Cardinal Contarini, whose friendliness was to profit Ignatius later in Rome.

It is plain enough that the Saint looked on his potent instrument, the " Exercises," less as a thing of his fashioning than a gift of God. The absoluteness of his belief in it is strongly shown by a letter from Venice to Miona, his confessor in Paris:

" I do not know any way ot repaying a tittle of what you have done, except to put you during a month in the ' Spiritual Exercises/... I pray you twice, thrice, and as often as I can, for the glory of God our Lord, to do what I have said, so that the Divine Majesty may not reprove me later for not having conjured you with all my might to do the best thing that I can think, feel, and understand on earth, not only for the separate good of each, but also to learn how to conduct many others in the way of piety — how to help and guide them. So that if you feel not the want yourself, you will see how much you can profit others beyond all degree more than you expect."

There is here no thought of " my" "Exercises": they are just the best thing he can conceive on earth for their purpose, and he says so in all simplicity.

But now it was grown time that his disciples should come to his assistance. From Paris, then, they started in the winter of 1536; and a toilsome march they had of it. At Meaux the rearguard joined them (for they had left Paris in two bodies); and Rodriguez presently had to repel the pursuit of his brother, who came up with him by the way and would have had him back to Paris. Rodriguez and Simon fell ill; and Xavier, in turn, broke down. Successful of old in students' races, to penance himself for vanity in his speed of foot he had girt about his legs with cords, with the result that the swollen flesh closed over the bands. Recovery did not end their agitations. More than once they came upon the French armies, moving against the Imperial troops, and from their Spanish tongue were in peril. The first time they were delivered by a peasant, who bade the soldiers let them go: " See you not they go to reform some country or other? " A speech which witnesses the ubiquity of " reformers '' in Europe of that day. It is strange to think on these lay Free Lances of Christ marching through the lances of the world's rulers, their nature and world-wide importance all unsuspected. Their marching-order was of the simplest. Staff in hand, rosary round neck, Bible, breviary, and papers slung from shoulder in a wallet, they trudged two and two, singing psalms, or talking of holy things. But, unlike the soldiers of the world, the weakest went ahead, and set the pace of the little column. So, gay and singing, went the first Franciscans when they invaded England. In the Protestant countries, the Ignatians had to dispute with the ministers, while abuse and, on occasion, even actual danger were their portion. At Basle, the Cathedral was a rope-walk; at an inn near Constance, the minister began by dispute, and ended high in German oath; so that some bystanders warned them in Latin of imminent imprisonment. Betimes in the morning a stranger entered the inn, and led them across the snow to the high road. Being young, tall, and " of a fair countenance," pious believers were not wanting to think him an angel. At another place a woman brought out to them from the hospital fragments of sacred images shattered by the Reformers, which they kissed, kneeling in the snow.

At last, on January 6, 1537, the little army kept tryst with its General at Venice, and the Saint wept over his faithful soldiers. They took up their residence at two of the hospitals (the Incurables and SS. John and Paul), where they tended the sick and taught, so that the nobles of the city were attracted to watch their charity. Xavier, at the Incurables, sucked the wounds of the patients, for that was believed by the doctors to be a remedy. Not till Mid-Lent did they start for Rome, and then without Ignatius. Ortiz, his old enemy of Paris, was there; and Cardinal Caraffa, who was thought to be scarce more favourable to him, since he had refused to join the Theatines of whom the Cardinal was patron. Ortiz was in Rome as Imperial Envoy in the matter of English Henry *s divorce from Queen Catharine. So the companions set forth to reach Rome in Holy Week. It was another trying journey. The rains had flooded the land, so that they sometimes had to wade breast-high; and they were so destitute that in passing the pine-wood of Ravenna — Dante's wood, and Shelley's — they fed on the pine-cones. Poor Rodriguez seemed fated to a certain kind of adventure. On the way from Paris he had fallen on a throng of dancers in the evening rays. Some girls ran out from the circle and coaxed Simon to join them, with such importunity that he fairly fled, crying, " Thieves, thieves! '* Now, knocking at a door, he was civilly asked upstairs, where three women were waiting him, of no good repute. Down he sped again: but at once began to address the by-passers under the window of the room whence he had escaped. The women listened in amused curiosity; but his sermon so arrested them that they were converted on the spot, and under his guidance began a better life. Part of the band had to take boat to Ancona, so deep were the floods. They had not a penny among them; and the boatman kept them prisoners in his boat while one loi landed, under oath to return and free his friends when he should have begged the money. He had to pawn his breviary for their release, and then to beg in order to release the imprisoned breviary. Coming to Tolentino at nightfall, in pouring rain, a stranger met them, silently placed money in the hand of the drenched Ignatian who was toiling along the middle of the road, and went his way. They proceeded joyously to an inn, and supped off bread, figs, and wine. But this gorgeous banquet they would not begin till they had sought out some beggars and invited them to share it. Truly, this was in the spirit of the early Franciscans.

Paul III. was the Pope who awaited, all-unconscious, the arrival of this new soldiery in Rome. From the outset of his Pontificate he had devoted himself to the sore-needed w^ork of reform, and gathered about him a band of cardinals zealous in the same cause. Contarini was among the chief of these: Contarini who, when it was cried that his attacks involved bygone Popes, replied: " Shall wc care for the fame of three or four Popes, and not mend what is corrupt, and earn a worthy reputation for ourselves? " The Pope, at the same time, was so mild in his measures against heretics, that fiery partisans in no long time accused his instruments of being themselves heretics; and Contarini echoed his wise moderation.

The new-comers were ultimately received in the Hospital of St. James of the Spaniards; and of all men, Ortiz, their dreaded enemy, was the first to present them to the Pope. Theologians, including bishops, cardinals, and Ortiz himself, engaged them in disputation, the Pope setting the themes; and Paul declared himself rejoiced to see such learning joined with such humility. He offered them assistance in all they might desire; and when they replied that they wished only his blessing and leave to depart for the Holy Land, he gave it them willingly. " But," he said, " I do not think you will go." He had the best of reasons for the saying. A league had been concluded among Charles V., the Venetians, and himself against the Turks, which he knew would make the seas impassable for pilgrims. The darling project of Ignatius was already foredoomed. Afterwards they sought and gained another request. All who were not priests were permitted to receive ordination from any bishop, while Salmeron, being under age, by special dispensation was allowed to be ordained so soon as he should be twenty-three. Further, the Pope sent fifty crowns for their journey to the Levant.

Thus successful, they rejoined Ignatius in Venice. They renewed their vows of poverty and chastity in the hands of Monsignor Veralli; and Ignatius with six of his disciples proceeded to the Holy Orders which they had not received. On the tenth and seventeenth of June they received the subdiaconate and diaconate: on the Feast of St. John Baptist

(the twenty-fourth) they received the priesthood from the Bishop of Arba, Vincenzio Nigusanti.

The war with the Turks was now in full progress, and the seas impassable. It was settled, therefore, to wait a year, and if their design was still impossible, to abandon it and devote themselves to the salvation of souls where they found themselves. Meanwhile they were to separate, to seek retirement and preach the faith in various parts of the Venetian States. Ignatius, Favre, and Lainez went to Vicenza; Xavier and Salmeron to Monselice; Rodriguez and Le Jay to Bassano; Bobadilla and Broet to Verona; Codure and Hozes to Treviso. The embers of the new fire were scattered over Venetia to kindle the land. For rule, they adopted the simple expedient that each should be Superior during one week. Simon Rodriguez seemed peculiarly exposed to mishap in these early days of the infant Company, as we have seen; and this separation had nigh parted him from the Order. He and Le Jay had been received by a saintly hermit, Antonio, in his hermitage of San Vito, near Bassano, where they slept luxuriously on a table, who were used to sleep on the ground. There Simon fell ill, and was given over by the doctor. Ignatius, suffering from low fever, set out to visit him. As he stopped on the road to pray, Favre (who went with him) saw his face lit up, as usual when his prayers were specially blessed. " Rodriguez will not die,'' said he; and coming in to Rodriguez and embracing him, " Take heart," he bade him, " Brother Simon, for you will not die yet." Rodriguez forthwith began to mend. But Antonio had not much opinion of the Saint. Here was a man in clerical dress mixing freely with the world. There was too much individualism about the life for the hermit's notions, and only after Ignatius had gone was it plain to him in prayer that he had slighted a Saint, showing, said he penitently, how little you can guess the sap of a tree from its bark. Meanwhile the gentle and contemplative Simon returned with the others to Bassano, regretted his hermit's cell, fell melancholy, and at last fled secretly towards San Vito again. But, on the way, to him as to Balaam appeared one with a drawn sword who stood over against him. He stood, then essayed to advance. But the man came on towards him, so that Rodriguez turned and fled back, to the amazement of those who saw him. But on his return Ignatius met him, and smiling, with arms outstretched, " O thou of little faith,'* he said, " why didst thou doubt? "

The years drew to a close with the seas still shut against them, and they now resumed preaching. Things had so far declined from the days of St. Francis of Assisi that this had for the people all the attraction of novelty. Not only was preaching neglected, indeed, but the churches were wellnigh deserted: the effects of Humanism and the Reformation were everywhere. The time was ripe for the new preachers. Their method was to go out together, each into a difl^erent piazza, mount a bench, and then wave their caps to attract the attention of passers. Long was it since these had seen men in secular priests' attire thus familiarly speaking to them of God in the public ways. They looked with idle wonder on these meanly dressed fellows, stammering bad Italian.

But soon the preachers' ardour had its effect: and conversions came numerously. Therewith came also the old trouble These men who prated in open street, an unheard-of thing! who or what were they? Heretics, doubtless, of whom there were such numbers swarming over Europe. Soon it was reported that Ignatius had escaped from France and Spain because he was "wanted'' by the Inquisition of both countries. The Nuncio Veralli examined into the charge, and was satisfied of its falsity: but the Saint, after his custom, insisted on a formal attestation of orthodoxy, and obtained it in October 1537. ^^ ^^^ assembled his disciples in the ruined convent at Vicenza where he resided, and those lately ordained said their first Mass. There were two exceptions: Rodriguez and Ignatius himself. The Saint, in his humble diffidence, postponed this repeatedly, and did not actually say his first Mass till the Christmas Day of 1 538 in the Chapel of the Nativity in Santa Maria. Rodriguez said his also the next year at Ferrara. Meanwhile Xavier in his turn followed Rodriguez's example (as he had followed it en route from Paris) and fell ill. Winter, draughty lodgings, labour, and austerities were a sufficient cause. As he lay, now tossing with fever, now trembling with accesses of cold, St. Jerome appeared to him (a Saint of his peculiar predilection), comforting and strengthening him, and foretelling that in Bologna, whither he would be sent, he would receive a cross, to his spiritual gain.