THURSDAY, MAY 09, 2024
Sr Molly Fernandes
Every Goan must have paid their homage to St Francis Xavier at the Basilica of Bom Jesus. However, have you noticed the main altar of the Basilica? The one right behind in the middle with the golden paint, up above in the center? That picture is very vivid and I have seen it umpteen times during my days of formation and while at Mater Dei, but had no knowledge of the same till I read the hard truth behind that picture. That iconic picture - God the Father with Jesus carrying the Cross - when Inigo (Ignatius) was immersed in prayer.
While on his journey from Venice to Rome in 1537, we learn from those who were with him, Pietro Fabro of Villaret and Giacomo Lainez of Almazàn that, as soon as Ignatius entered the church while he was immersed in prayer in a small, dilapidated chapel ‘La Storta,’ he felt a sudden change come over him. He saw God the Father, together with Jesus who was carrying his Cross. Both the Father and the Son were looking most kindly on him and he heard the Father say to the Son: ‘I wish you to take this man as your servant’. Jesus then directed his words to the kneeling pilgrim and said, ‘I wish you to be our servant’. Then he heard the Father add, ‘I will be favourable to you in Rome’.
St Ignatius (Inigo) was born in 1491, in the Castle of Loyola in Azpeitia, in the village of Guipuzcoa, near the Pyrenees. His father, Don Beltran, was a knight of Onaz and Loyola, head of one of the oldest and most noble families of the region. His mother’s linage was also eminent, Dona Marina Saenz de Licona and Balda. Inigo baptismal name was the youngest of eight sons and three daughters of the couple. Inigo fought against the French in the north of Castilla. His brief military career ended abruptly on May 20, 1521, when a bullet from a canon hit his leg during the battle in defence of the Castle of Pamplona.
To get back to his worldly affairs, he went in for operation. The broken bones in his legs did not heal well, and the doctors considered the need to break them again and operate and he tolerated heroically. Trying to distract himself during the time of his recovery, Inigo requested some books of chivalry (adventures of war and horses, which he always enjoyed). But the only book found in the Castle of Loyola was a book on the history of Christ and a volume on the life of the saints. Inigo started to read them, and little by little, he started to have more interest in them, spending entire days reading. He used to say, “If those men were made of the same flesh as I, I also can do what they did.” Inflamed by fervor, he proposed to go on a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady and enter as a lay brother to a monastery. But such ideas were not constant, and his anxiety of personal glory and his love for a lady occupied most of his thoughts. When he returned to the books on the lives of the saints, he understood his vanity and the world’s glory and sensed that only God was able to satisfy his heart.
These fluctuations allowed Inigo to observe a difference in him: the thoughts that came from God left him full of consolation, peace and tranquillity; the worldly thoughts had some delight, but only left him with desolation and emptiness. Finally, Inigo decided to imitate the saints and began to do as many kinds of corporal penances as possible and to cry for his sins. To see and find God in all things and all things in God, became his crux.
God looks upon us and wish that we take Jesus His Son as our companion in our day-to-day life. We need to believe that God will be favourable to us no matter how tough and rough the situations are with every day events, hardships and even sickness, to find and see God’s presence and experience him in the most trying situations. Nothing happens without his plan. All things come from God and all things go back to God. This can be experienced in the contemplation on the spiritual exercises.
One evening, the Mother of God appeared, surrounded with light and in her arms the Child Jesus. This vision deeply consoled Ignatius. After his recuperation, he made a pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Montessarat Sanctuary, where he decided to live a life of penance. His goal was to reach Holy Land. Therefore, he had to wait in a small town called Manresa but God had other urgent plans for Ignatius at that moment in his life. He wanted to take Ignatius to a deeper union with him in prayer and total poverty. He lounged there, sometimes with the Dominicans in the convent and other times in a shelter for the poor. In order to pray and do more penance, he would go to a near-by cave.
He says, “For the purpose of imitating Christ Our Lord and to be more like Him in truth, I choose poverty with Christ; poverty instead of riches; more than honours, humiliations with Christ humiliated. I want to be known for being idiotic and crazy for Christ - He was the first to go through it before being known as wise and prudent in this world.” He decided to “choose the way of God, instead of the way of the world.”
This experience gave Ignatius the unique ability to help in scruples and a great discernment of spirit in spiritual direction. He once confessed to Father Lainez that in one hour of prayer in Manresa, he learned more than all the professors in the university could teach him. At the beginning of his conversion, Ignatius, still influenced by the mentality of the world, once heard a blasphemy from a moor against the Blessed Virgin Mary; he doubted if he, being a Christian, should kill the blasphemer or not. Because of intervention of Divine Providence, he was protected from committing this sin.
He was blessed with more companions Pedro Fabro, priest from Saboya; St Francis Xavier, from Navarra; Lainez and Salmeron, brilliant in their studies; Simon Rodriguez, originally from Portugal; and Nicolas Bobadilla. Moved by the exhortations of Ignatius, these fervent students made vows to be poor, to be chaste, and to go and preach the Gospel to Palestine; or if this was not possible, than offer themselves to the Pope, so he may decide where they should go to serve God best. They also agreed that, if asked about the name of their association, they would respond that they belonged to the Company of Jesus.
Ignatius spent the rest of his life in Rome, consecrated to the work of governing the order he founded. Among other things, he founded a house to help accommodate neophyte Jews during their catechetical period and other houses for repented women. On one occasion, someone said to him that true conversion for such sinners is rare and not sincere. Ignatius responded, “I’m willing to suffer anything for the joy of knowing that one sin is prevented. “Rodriguez and Francis Xavier departed to Portugal in 1540. With the help of King John III, Xavier was transferred to India, winning a new world for Christ. The priests Gonclaves and Juan Nunez Barreto were sent to Morocco to instruct and help the Christian slaves. Four other missionaries were sent to Congo, some others to Ethiopia and the Portuguese colonies of South America. And as willed by God in 1540, Paul III confirmed the foundation of the ‘Company of Jesus.’
This life story reminds one of Pharaoh, where God tells Moses that he will harden his heart. Even in such situations, the capacity to find God, when God doesn’t seem to be around, Ignatius invites us to seek and find him. For in and through such situations our life becomes meaningful and our relationship with God deepens. When we are carrying our daily cross and everything seems to go haywire, we need to remember that all things happen for the good of those who are called by God as St Paul reminds us in his letter. It is not easy but nothing is impossible with God certainly, ‘All for the greater glory of God’. The La Storta, Mystery continues its mission through the companions of Jesus whom we call Jesuits.
Like all Jesuits and true companions of St Ignatius, let us desire to be ‘placed with Christ’ by the Father, as happened to Ignatius at La Storta!
