There is an interesting article on the website of the British Province, Thinking Faith, which is entitled “My own personal Ignatius.” Ten persons–Jesuits, lay people, religious women–share who St Ignatius is for them, what it is about Ignatius that inspires or touches them most. A former Provincial feels most inspired by Ignatius the leader and risk-taker; a religious sister speaks of Ignatius the friend who brought out the best in his companions; yet another finds inspiration in Ignatius, who loved and served a wounded Church; and so forth. It might be good for each of us today to ask what it is about Ignatius that moves us personally and most deeply. It could generate a very rich spiritual conversation.
To help you reflect on this question, allow me to share with you three personal answers to the question of who Ignatius is for me. I hope that this will help stimulate your own reflection.
First, Ignatius the Pilgrim. As you know, this is how Ignatius describes himself in the Autobiography. A pilgrim is not a tourist. A tourist travels in security because everything has been planned in advance. A pilgrim, by way of contrast, is one who goes on a journey marked by much uncertainty. He nevertheless goes forward in trust, courage, and joy; because he knows he is being led by God. The pilgrim often sees only one step at a time, encounters many surprises, some pleasant, some not so pleasant; but that is fine with him, as long as he knows that he is walking with his Lord.
For me, this is who Ignatius was, in the almost twenty years from the cannonball of Pamplona in 1521 to the approbation of the Society in Rome in 1540. I love the image of Ignatius, after the collapse of his plans to stay in the Holy Land, sneaking out and bribing the guard to see the direction of the feet of Jesus during the Ascension. I think this was profoundly symbolic: in the face of the failure of his plans, instead of being depressed and paralyzed, he searched for new direction, wanting to see where Jesus’ feet pointed so he could follow him. Even in the sixteen years of “stable” life in Rome as General, Ignatius continued to be a pilgrim. We know that the Spiritual Diary, that strange document, was a record of a discernment Ignatius made from 1544 to 1545 about poverty. What strikes me is that, behind all the mystical graces of tears and consolation, Ignatius was bringing to God a very mundane, very practical and concrete question about money and how to use it. The marvel is that Ignatius expected an answer from God; he was certain he would be led.
Someone asked me the other day at dinner whether I had dreamed when I was a formand of being in Rome doing what I am doing. My answer was, “Of course not!” The point is, despite my resistances and sinfulness, the Lord has led me, and my Jesuit life has been a pilgrimage. I am sure that every one of us here who has been in the Society for some time can look back at his life and marvel at how and where he has been led. We pray that St Ignatius will help us continue to be open to God’s mysterious, loving plans. I pray that we may all be like one of my companions in the Curia, who, facing a life-threatening cancer operation, found himself praying what I consider a quintessential Pilgrim’s prayer: “Lord, I don’t know what will happen, and I don’t even know what grace to pray for. All I ask is that, whatever happens, do not allow me to be separated from you.”
Second, Ignatius, the Servant. Fr Nicolas [former Jesuit Superior General] constantly reminded us that “service” is one of the most profoundly Ignatian words. At La Storta, Ignatius heard the eternal Father say to Jesus, “I want you to take this man as your servant.”
I find most inspiring and attractive the two principal ways Ignatius sought to live out this call to be a servant. First, Ignatius was a minister of consolation. Facing the challenges to faith in his time, “Ignatius did not compose a new summary of doctrine.” Instead, “he rediscovered a way of helping people to encounter the person of Christ.” Ignatius wanted to help people not just to have correct ideas about God, but to experience in a profound, personal, and real way the transforming love of God in Jesus, which brings order, peace, and true joy to human life. Second, he was a minister of compassion. Reading the Autobiography during the Ignatian Year, one of the things that struck me most is that, as Ignatius grew closer to the Lord, he spontaneously seemed to grow in a concern for the poor and a desire to serve them. I am struck that the first works Ignatius established in Rome in 1537 were not schools, but places to care for the vulnerable and excluded. First, a home for Muslim and Jewish converts to Christianity, who were shunned by their families; second, a refuge for prostitutes and battered women; and third, an “orphanage” for children of prostitutes, who were most vulnerable to fall into the sex trade like their mothers. These were all ministries aimed at caring for and protecting the most vulnerable persons whom Ignatius encountered upon his arrival in Rome. They reveal Ignatius’ heart, the direction of his love that led him to serve.
In our world today, in which there seems to be an increasing deafness to the Gospel and a widespread indifference to faith, and in which we find many new forms of exclusion and poverty, perhaps we are being invited to follow Ignatius and grow as creative and generous servants of Christ’s mission, as ministers of consolation and compassion.
Third, Ignatius, the man of hope. I find Ignatius’ capacity for hope best captured in one of Pope Francis’ favorite Latin sayings, which comes from a verse written by an unknown Belgian Jesuit scholastic in 1640, in a eulogium of St Ignatius: Non coërceri maximo, contineri tamen a minimo, divinum est. This verse is very difficult to translate. A somewhat literal translation might be: “Not to be confined by the greatest, yet to be contained within the smallest, this is divine.” Hugo Rahner is supposed to have regarded this as the best description of the spirituality of Ignatius.
What does this saying mean? In one of his writings as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio explains that this maxim describes a good leader who is “not intimidated by great enterprises but does not think little things beneath him.” In a speech to students in 2013, Pope Francis describes magnanimity as “the virtue of the great and the small… having a great heart, having great ideals, the wish to do great things… but also doing the little everyday things with a great heart.” Pope Francis exhorted newly created cardinals in 2014, to “know how to love without boundaries, but at the same time be faithful to particular situations and with concrete gestures. To love what is great without neglecting what is small; to love small things within the horizon of the great, because ‘Non coerceri a maximo, contineri tamen a minimo, divinum est.’”
In the Gospel today, Jesus seems to be telling us to be realistic about the limitations of our resources. Don’t build a great tower if you don’t have enough money. Don’t go into battle if you don’t have enough soldiers. There is wisdom in this. And yet at the heart of the Gospel is also the paradox of greatness and littleness, how God does the great work of salvation through the little: Mary, Joseph, the ragtag band of fishermen and other marginal persons who were the apostles, and Jesus himself, the son of a carpenter in a provincial corner of the Roman Empire. Ignatius seemed to have thoroughly understood this mysterious paradox and this gave him hope. In a time of enormous challenges, he continued to nourish dreams of great service to the Church, even with limited resources of men and money. The littleness of his resources did not discourage him from wanting to do great service; at the same time, his great dreams did not blind him from doing the will of God and serving others in concrete, little ways.
These days, we can sometimes fall into desolation when we consider the reduced number of our vocations, our diminished influence in the Church and Society, our many weaknesses. Perhaps the figure of Ignatius, the man of hope, who never allowed littleness of resources to discourage him from participating in God’s great work, might be saying something important to us. I recently read a passage from a remarkable modern French lay apostle named Madeleine Delbrêl, which summarizes for me this aspect of Ignatius. Delbrel wrote in 1938, “We are often quite wrong about the greatness of our deeds. We only know two things: first, everything we do is little; second, everything that God does is very great. This makes us peaceful before action.” In other words, we do the little we can do, trusting God is doing great things through us.
Brothers, who is Ignatius of Loyola for you? For me, and perhaps for some of you, Ignatius is the pilgrim, the servant, the minister of consolation and compassion, and the man of hope. He inspires us to put our lives ever more fully into the hands of God. He invites us to help people experience God’s love in prayer and in our concrete care for the suffering. He calls us not to give in to desolation in the face of our littleness and weakness, but to go forward in courage, joy, and faith. On his feast, we thank the Lord for this miracle of God’s grace who was Ignatius of Loyola. We ask for a share of his graces, so that we might become more authentic, more generous, more joyful, as his sons and followers.