The legacy of St Ignatius’ conversion – 500 years of the Jesuits

Irish Jesuit Provincial Fr Leonard Moloney SJ reflects on St Ignatius’s conversion and his legacy in Ireland, writes Ruadhán Jones

On May 20, 1521, while St Ignatius of Loyola was attempting to defend a citadel in the town of Pamplona, Spain, his leg was shattered by a cannonball. Famously, this accident precipitated the vain young man becoming a soldier for Christ, founding the order of the Society of Jesus. But 500 years on from this event, what is the relevance of the saint today? And what is the legacy of his order, the Jesuits, in Ireland?

The Jesuit order across the world will spend the next 14 months, from May 20, 2021, to July 31, 2022 – the anniversary of St Ignatius’ canonisation – celebrating and reflecting on just those questions. Speaking about the saint’s significance today, the Provincial of the Irish Jesuits Fr Leonard Moloney SJ, who opened celebrations in Ireland with a Mass on May 20, praised the “way of understanding” Christ that St Ignatius passed on.

“He has passed on to us a way of understanding, a fuller possible way of being fully human in relationship with Christ,” Fr Moloney says, “in a way that enables people to look at their lives and see what is true and what is lasting. He has given us tools so that we are not just distracted by the ephemeral.

“If we look and see what’s happening in politics at the moment, there are forces at work that lead people down very narrow understandings of what the true is, what the good is,” he continues. “And I think if we take – and you don’t have to be religious to take Ignatius’ rules of discernment, his practices of discernment – but you begin to see and get in touch with your interior self, your interiority. I suppose we’re called to testify to that.”

The year is “really a celebration of Ignatius’ conversion”, Fr Moloney says, and the story of his conversion is an interesting tale in its own right. Inigo de Loyola, as he was called, was born into a family attached to the court of the kingdom of Castille. Inigo frequently attended the court, where he took advantage of the pleasures it offered. He was addicted to gambling, promiscuous and contentious, always eager to engage in a fight.

He dressed in the garb of a fighting man, wearing a coat of mail and breastplate, and carrying a sword and other arms. In May 1521, he found himself in Pamplona, a Spanish town under siege by the French. They were terribly outnumbered and the commander of the Spanish forces wanted to surrender. St Ignatius persuaded him to fight back, but the French inevitably overwhelmed them and St Ignatius was struck by that fateful cannonball.

Bravery

The French so admired his bravery that they carried him back on a stretcher to recover. It was in this time that St Ignatius began to develop this “way of understanding” Christ, having first to overcome his vanity.

“He was a very vain guy at the time,” Fr Moloney explains. “His leg had to be re-shattered in order to heal properly and he had to be brought back to Pamplona on a fairly rocky road. He could have died, but he was still very strong. So, lying on his bed he asked for books to read, he wanted some way of passing the time.

“He probably would have been a traditional Catholic for the time, but it wouldn’t have been very deep. They had no books in the house apart from books on the life of Christ and the life of the saints. And during his recouperation, he was lying in bed and fantasising about rescuing ladies in distress, who had been kidnapped or imprisoned. He fantasised about rescuing them or doing heroic human deeds.

“He began to notice that those kinds of fantasies passed very quickly and left him very dissatisfied. But in reading the life of Christ – and he re-wrote it, including the words of Mary, writing it out again – he noticed in thinking about particular saints, like St Dominic [founder of the Dominicans], that he imagined himself living a life akin to St Dominic and the deeds that he did. And he found those fantasies far more satisfying and they perdured – they lasted longer.

“He started to recognise at the beginning of his study, of his discernment, which he is really known for, that distinguishing of movements within himself. It was short-term, obviously, not inspired by God and these longer discernments in which he felt called to imitate the saints. This longer discernment happened over the next year or so, when he really felt himself called to a personal relationship with the Lord,” Fr Moloney finishes.

Injury

Having recovered from his injury, and converted from his old wayward desires, St Ignatius planned on making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He spent a night in prayer before a statue of Our Lady in Montserrat, laying down his arms and giving away his good clothes. He took up only an old cloak, sandals and a staff, before setting out on his travels. Along the way he stopped in Manresa, near Barcelona, and a short stay extended to ten months, as he stayed in a cave and worked locally.

During this time, he continued to develop what would become the Spiritual Exercises, a key practice of Jesuit spirituality and thoroughly detailed in St Ignatius’ own text, Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. It was also while he stayed in the cave praying that he received a vision or inspiration from God. Though he never revealed the nature of this vision, it appears to have been a revelation of God as he really is. St Ignatius saw creation in a new light, and from this moment he was able to find God in all things – this is now a central tenet of the Society’s spirituality.

He did eventually reach the Holy Land, but was sent home. Although he maintained a special devotion to the Holy Land, he was unable to return and instead devoted himself to doing the Lord’s work in Rome, eventually founding the Society of Jesus. Even then, it was not smooth sailing. But, as Pope Francis reflected May 23 in a message for the Ignatian Year, “discernment does not consist in always succeeding from the beginning, but rather in navigating and having a compass in order to be able to set out on the path — which has many twists and turns — but always allowing oneself to be guided by the Holy Spirit, who leads us to the encounter with the Lord”.

“On this earthly pilgrimage, we meet others like Ignatius did in his life,” the Pope said. “These other people are signs that help us to stay on course and who invite us to convert again and again. Conversion always occurs through dialogue — dialogue with God, dialogue with others, dialogue with the world.”

Fr Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Jesuits, speaking at the same event, echoed the Pope’s words in explaining that while St Ignatius’ conversion started with a life-changing event, it was a gradual process that lasted throughout his life.

“Ignatius learned on his way that conversion means to be available and open to God, to be trusting, laying his life completely in God’s hands,” Fr Sosa said. That involved repeatedly setting aside his own ideas and preferences “to put Christ at the centre”.

“The same thing happened with the founding of the Society of Jesus,” he said. “Things didn’t go smoothly like in some sort of business plan, rather it was a continual listening to the Spirit and a daily conversion, not putting a focus on the society as an institution, but on Christ.”

Mission

For the Jesuits, their mission continues today in the image of St Ignatius, dealing with times of triumph and of failure. Fr Moloney believes St Ignatius’ example must shape the approach of the Irish Jesuits’ for the year, one which will be a period of celebration and atonement for the Irish branch of the order. Revelations of abuse in Jesuit-run schools in Limerick and Kildare earlier this year hurt the order deeply.

“The Irish province faces into a period now of looking at the really dark side of its history through individuals,” Fr Moloney continued. “In this year, if Ignatius is our rock and foundation, if he is to enable us through what I’ve just been talking about, then we have to face into that dark history with the goal of simply healing those who have been hurt by us.”

But the good legacy of the Irish Jesuits continues to be felt throughout the world, and in Ireland also. Fr Moloney quickly points to the example of the “iconic figure” of the province, Fr Peter McVerry, but also to examples of their influence around the world – including in Hong Kong, whose new bishop Fr Stephen Chow Sau-yan SJ is a former student of the Irish province.

“Just on Monday [May 17], the new bishop of Hong Kong was appointed, Stephen Chow,” the Jesuit Provincial says. “We’re very proud of that because we know him very well, he did his noviciate here, he studied philosophy here. He’s been the provincial in Hong Kong for the last two or three years. I’ve had intermittent contact with him on different matters and he gave me sound advice on political stance on the Uyghur people, very profound advice.”

Example

Bishop-Elect Chow is far from the only example of the Irish Jesuits’ influence throughout the world, one which is especially strong in the intellectual sphere of the Church. Fr Moloney says that, though vocations have shrunk, the quality of those who have joined remains exceptionally high.

“I think of Jim Corkery in Rome; Gerry Whelan as well, who is a great Bernard Lonergan scholar,” he adds. “I think of Seamus Murphy, who unfortunately is unwell, but teaches philosophy in Chicago; Cathal Doherty teaching theology in San Francisco… Edmund Craig at the justice office in Brussels and Michael McGuckian out in Ankara, who has published three different books out of his two decades study of the Church and Vatican II.

“We’ve never just been limited by our size. One of the features of the province of the last while has been, even though our vocations are seriously declining, the quality of the people who are joining us now – I’m talking about a tiny number, a handful over the last couple of years – the quality is extraordinary. We have continued to make significant numbers of people available for works abroad.”

Effort

While the year will involve a great effort by the Irish Jesuits “to heal those who have been wounded by us over the last six decades”, Fr Moloney – and the Jesuit order across the world – are hoping that ‘the Ignatian Year’ will encourage an interest in the order. Jesuit Superior Arturo Sosa is placing “a strong emphasis” on the question of vocations, Fr Moloney says.

“Arturo has asked us to prioritise in so far as it is possible the promotion of vocations and we will do that,” the Irish Jesuit continues. “We have a great man coming back into the province after years of study, Niall S. Leahy. He will go in as a curate in Gardiner street to assist a new parish priest, Fr Richard O’Dwyer… One of Niall’s priorities will be working with young adults, always keeping an eye on vocation promotion. He’s very strong on the question of social media and websites and all that. The communications office here, he’s going to redevelop that.”

It is also Fr Moloney’s great hope that the Jesuit parish in Gardiner Street, Dublin, can become the Jesuit centre for the province: “We’re trying to do some work on this, formulating a province plan for the next few years, looking at what we’ve got and I suppose moving from a Jesuit led to a lay-led, but Ignatian imbued, leadership in the province. We see that in our schools, which is probably what we’re best known for in the province.

“We have a church there, we have a college around the corner, we have the Gardiner street Deis school, which we have taken over trusteeship of in the last couple of years, we have the Jesuit Refugee Service, we have the Centre for Faith and Justice, we have Irish Jesuit International. We’re connected to Trinity, we’re connected to Dublin City University, we’re connected to the National College of Ireland. I’d love to see that becoming some kind of hub,” Fr Moloney concludes.

The Ignatian Year began May 20 and will continue until July 31, 2022. For more information about the commemorations and events taking place in Ireland, visit https://www.jesuit.ie/.