The Autobiography of St. Ignatius

s health improving. As soon as he arrived in the province of Guipuscoa, his native country, abandoning the common highway he followed a road through the mountains because it was less frequented. H

s brother from Bayonne in France, where he had been recognized by several persons. Still Ignatius kept on in the direction he had taken, and shortly before he arrived in the town he met some priests

, many came regularly, his brother among the number. In addition to this, on Sundays and feast days, he also preached to the people with great fruit, and thousands came many miles to hear him. He labored also for the removal of many abuses, and through God's grace good results were obtained in many cases. To give an example: By his representatio

s which he had undertaken for his companions. He resolved to set out on foot and without money. His brother was grieved at this, and looked on it as a disgrace to himself

he suffered a great deal, as I shall now relate. One day after landing he wandered from his path and followed a road which ran along the bank of a river. The road was high, while far below was the river deep and sluggish. The farther he advanced, the narrower grew the road. At last he came to a spot where he could neither go forward nor backward. He then began to advance on hands and feet and continued thus for a long time, full of fear. For as often as he moved it seemed to him that he would fall into the river. This was the greatest of all the bodily labors that he ever experienced. At last he escaped, but just as he was entering Bologna he fell from a little bridge and was so wet and dirty from the mud and water as to afford much laughter to a great crowd who observed the accident. From his entrance into Bologna until his departure he begged for alms, and though he went through the whole city, he did not receive so much as a farthing. As he was ill, he re

cept it only in the form of bills, and when they were unable to make the voyage to Jerusalem they returned it to those who had made the gift. They returned to Venice in the same manner that they had set out for Rome. They traveled on foot and begging, divided into three parties, as they were of different nationalities. Those who were not priests were ordained at Venice, having received faculties from the Nuncio, who was then in that city and who was afterward called Cardinal Verallus. They were promoted to the priesthood sub titulo paupertatis, having made vows of poverty and chastity. That year no ships left for the East, on account of the breach of the treaty between the Venetians and Turks. When, therefore, they saw their hopes deferred, they dispersed into various part

ir hands to call the people. These sermons caused great talk in the city, and led many citizens to a devout life. Now the needed nourishment was supplied to them more abundantly. While the pilgrim was at Vicenza, he had many spiritual visions. Consolations

his companion, was unable to keep up with him. On the way he received an assurance from God that his companion would not die of this illness. As soon as they arrived at Bassanum, the sick

epare himself better, and to ask the Most Blessed Virgin to place him near her Son. One day, when he was a few miles from Rome, he entered a church to pray, and there felt his soul so moved and changed, and saw so clearly that God the Father placed him with Christ His Son, that he did not dare to doubt it. When Ignatius was told that sever

persecute Ignatius and his companions. Michael was the first of all to be troublesome and to speak wickedly of Ignatius, and had him summoned before the governor for trial. Ignatius showed the governor a letter written by the same Michael, in which he commended Ignatius very highly. The governor examined Michael, and the result was that he was exiled from Rome. After him followed Mindarra and Berrera, who said that Ignatius and his companions were fugitives from Spain, Paris, and Venice. Finally, however, in the presence of the governor and ambassador then at Rome, both acknowledged that they had nothing which th

orks were established at Rome, as that of Catechumens, that of St.

g

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AND HIS WORK

eir metal and forged for the world their trenchant steel, in a region where the generous, passionate, valiant

of chivalry and by an exquisite delicacy of charity-this was the real character of St. Ignatius. This will be seen in the brief glimpse given of his life and his spirit of charity, his ab

orizon of history. He cannot be ignored,

he friends of God, have rejoiced that, as God sent him forth to teach

of ideas, a man of energy. He has made his influence felt throughout the universe, not only in the civilized wor

science. But Ignatius has not been limited to any one of these. He is the founder of a Religious Order that has sent pioneers into all these fields and forests of valor or research; he is the writer of the Spiritual Exercises that have won a fame gained by b

and, and then a soldier under the Duke of Navarre, his relative. The army of Francis I penetrated into Navarre, and, at the

he received the wound he was confined to his bed while his broken leg was set; and while awaiting his slow recovery he read the lives o

y of eternity compared with the worldliness of the life he had been leading. Inspired with enthusiasm at the lives

st and His glorious Mother. It was at this time that Our Lord sent him a vision to strengthen and console him. He beheld one night, as he was holding his vigils, the gl

his Order, imitating its founder, has shown the most unbounded af

ez, Suarez, and St. Francis Borgia expounded the Holy Scriptures. St. Ignatius sent Father de Torres to Salamanca to found the famous college where the i

ng received the degree of Bachelor of Arts two years before. The University of Paris had the honor of having as pupils St. Ignatius, St. Fra

ges founded by St. Igna

andia. In 1556 the College of Ingolstadt was founded. In 1552 a college was founded at Vienna, and in 1

in Rome by St. Ignatius p

s, 121 titular bishops, 100 bishops in partibus infidelium, 6 abbots or generals of religious orde

ssroom Father Cardella counted seventeen different orders of all differen

ancis Borgia, in 1551, at the foot of the Capitol in Rome, with fourteen

hairs: theologians like Suarez and Vasquez; commentators such as Cornelius à Lapide and Maldonatus; founders of national history schools, as Mariana and Pallavicini; Clavius, reformer of the

eminence, men of elevated thought and of noble and generous minds. In particular three charac

ars of age; Aloysius Gonzaga, an Italian prince of twenty-

we find Bossuet, Corneille, Molière, Tasso, Fontenell

rtes, Buffon, Justus Lipsius, Muratori the historian, Calderon, and Vico, the author of "Ideas of History," Richelieu, Tilly, Malesherbes, Don John of Austria, Luxembourg, Esterha

on, and nearly all had taught humanities, belles-lettres, and rhetoric. Father S

TH

world for their monumental work, the "Acta Sanctorum." Similar gigantic works were carried on by Fathers de Bac

icci, Perry, De Vico, S

atics, Ha

tics, "The J

ucci, Marchi, the

, Strassmaier, Harvas

Vasquez, Toletus, M

Cominbricense

aum, Gury, Toledo, Ballerin

de Paz, Gaudier, Rodr

Father Watragan has written a work merely to recor

NAL PLAN OF

ollege, the type of colleges of Jesuit education, would have for its

tius. It was completed and developed by Aquaviva. The work w

of other great merits, but particularly for

unified method of thorough teaching, it w

0 young men chiefly of the nobility, at Rome 2000, at La Flèche 1700. In the seventeenth century at the College of Louis le Gr

Prague, Gr?tz, Olmütz, Wilna, as well as in Japan, were directed by th

two hundred thousand students being ed

sis of the work done by the Order and

ation to two thousand of the nobility and gentry, how much would be required to educat

n the educational institute

dity and th

s was such that, as St. Ignatius said, "It was useless to begin at t

one through with satisfactorily, a

the Order were sent for work outside of Jesuit institutions. If the younger men were sent abroad, the younger generation would be deprived of that type; and i

prince's throne, and in fifteen years from the foundation of the Order left one hundred colleges and houses in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Sicily, Germany, France, Brazil, and the East Indies. Xavier traveled from India and Ceylon, in the west, to Malucca,

ded a house, a college, a mission, there too came apostl

y Mountains, beside the mission house of Spoka

re were 272 colleges, and in 150 years the collegia

ays Father Thomas Hughes in his work on Loyola, "in their scope of legislative execu

nd essential bond these 92 Jesuit colleges were vastly more of a unit as an identical educational power than any faculty existing. No faculty at Paris, Rome, Salamanca, or Oxford ever preserve

Rome and in China, in South Africa and North America, in the Philippine Islands as well a

ges scattered over the world, cont

Oxford and Cambridge and Glasgow and Harvard

ege at Rome there

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fessors of the Society of Jesus under one universit

ding the 700 institutions that had been destroyed by the suppression had to

From 1542 to 1773 is a period of 231 years. The suppression lasted from 1773 to

first-grade college in the district; Melbourne, Australia; St. Ignatius College, California, the pioneer of Pacific coast missions and of the Rocky Mountains; at Kansas City the only boarding college in the far West; St. Ignatius, at Cleveland, Ohio, on

period (that is, a period of 231 years), ther

t, and, with ready mind and heart and pen, in thirty-five years he achieved the gigantic work of the founding and devel

e and deliberation, and

ts work. It has its churches-its missions-its colleges. In its churches it is faithful to the teaching of Christ and His Church, loyal ever to the Vicar of Christ; in its missions, unbounded in zeal and perso

ENZIGER BROT