Ignatius of Loyola
Spanish nobleman, soldier, and founder of the Society of Jesus.
Ignatius of Loyola was a Basque nobleman whose conversion to Christian religious life followed a serious injury at the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. While recovering, he read the Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony and Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend, and these readings began the transformation that led him to abandon his military career, undertake a year of solitary prayer at Manresa, and eventually found the Society of Jesus, the religious order known as the Jesuits, in 1540. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises, composed between 1522 and 1548, are not a book to be read but a structured month-long retreat designed to be made under the guidance of a director. The Exercises remain the foundational training of Jesuits and have been adapted for use by Christians of many traditions seeking a sustained encounter with the central events of Christ's life. The Suscipe, the closing prayer of the Exercises' Contemplation to Attain Love, expresses the spiritual disposition Ignatius believed the entire Exercises were meant to produce: complete surrender of self to God, in exchange for nothing but God's love and grace. Ignatius is also traditionally connected with the Anima Christi, which he placed at the opening of the Exercises, though manuscript evidence shows the Anima Christi predates him by more than two centuries.