Saint Ignatius of Loyola Personal Writings

SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
PERSONAL WRITINGS

IGNATIUS LOYOLA (1491–1556), youngest son in a noble Basque family, was trained as a page at the court of Castile. He was wounded at the siege of Pamplona (1521), and while convalescing underwent a deep conversion experience. He retired for a year of reflection to Manresa, the notes jotted at that time forming the basis of the influential Spiritual Exercises. After a hazardous pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he undertook prolonged studies (mainly in Paris), gradually attracting like-minded students. They took vows in 1534 and shortly afterwards formed what they called the ‘Society of Jesus’ (popularly known as the ‘Jesuits’). From 1540, when Ignatius was elected Superior General, he lived in Rome organizing, largely through a series of Letters, the astonishing spread of the Jesuits. He was canonized (along with his disciple, Francis Xavier, and Teresa of Avila) in 1622.

JOSEPH A. MUNITIZ was born in Cardiff in 1931 of Basque parents and educated in Wales and England, before spending three years in Spain. His years of study as a Jesuit included spells in London, Oxford, Spain and Italy. After doctoral work in Paris, he joined the staff of the Corpus Christianorum, Louvain, and then returned to edit the Heythrop Journal in London. He served as Master of Campion Hall, 1989–98, and retired to become an Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham. He maintains his interest in Jesuit studies as Assistant Novice Master in Harborne (Birmingham).

PHILIP ENDEAN was born in 1954. He read English at Merton College, Oxford, before entering the Society of Jesus in 1977. During his training as a Jesuit he lived in Mexico, the USA, Germany and Austria as well as in the UK. He has worked as a hospital chaplain in Manchester and as a lecturer in theology as Heythrop College, University of London. He now teaches theology at the University of Oxford, and is editor of The Way, a journal of Christian spirituality published by the British Jesuits.

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First published 1996
Reprinted with updates to Bibliography 2004
13

The moral right of the translators has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

EISBN: 978–0–141–90764–2

Preface

Chronology

Glossary

Bibliography

REMINISCENCES (AUTOBIOGRAPHY)

Introduction

1. Loyola

2. To Manresa via Montserrat

3. The Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

4. Studies and Conflicts in Spain

5. Paris

6. Interlude at Home

7. Italy

Epilogue by Gonçalves da Câmara

THE SPIRITUAL DIARY

Introduction

Pros and Cons in an election on poverty

The Spiritual Diary

Part I

Part II

SELECT LETTERS

Introduction

1 [1]* Advice to a good woman (Inés Pascual 1524)

2 [3] Dealings with brother and nephew (1532)

3 [4] Comfort among calamities (Isabel Roser 1532)

4 [7] Steps in discernment (Teresa Rejadell 1536)

5 [8] Prayer made easy (Teresa Rejadell 1536)

6 [10] In praise of The Spiritual Exercises (Fr Miona 1536)

7 [11] Blueprint for a religious order (Mgr Carafa 1536)

8 [XII, app.] Early years in Italy (1536–37)

9 [17] Thanks for support (Mgr Contarini 1538)

10 [18] Roman trials and tribulations (1538)

11 [52] Benighted obedience (Fr Viola 1542)

12 [79] Vocation doubts of a young man (1544)

13 [101] Borgia’s early steps (1545)

14 [123] Conduct at Trent (1546)

15 [149] Refusing episcopal dignities (1546)

16 [169] Ideals for newcomers (Coimbra 1547)

17 [182] Need for structures of government (Gandía 1547)

18 [186] Experience of poverty (Padua 1547)

19 [234] En route to the Constitutions (Louvain 1547)

20 [243] Defining obedience as an ideal (Coimbra 1548)

21 [466] Developments in the spiritual life (Borgia 1548)

22 [790] Dealing with a radical crisis (Borgia 1549)

23 [XII, app.] On prophecies and revelations (Gandía 1549)

24 [XII, app.] Spreading God’s word in a German university (1549)

25 [958] Placating a parent over a son’s vocation (1549)

26 [1554] Letter of resignation (1551)

27 [1587] Consoling a sister on her brother’s death (1551)

28 [2652] Refusing a Cardinal’s hat (Borgia 1552)

29 [3107] Students experiencing poverty (1552)

30 [3220] Agreeing to be royal confessors (1553)

31 [3304] The final word on obedience (1553)

32 [3505] The last call to Francis Xavier (Japan 1553)

33 [4184] Criteria in the choice of parish work (1554)

34 [5256] Financial worries (1555)

35 [5400^a] Norms for dealing with Superiors (1555)

36 [5471] The Society and the Inquisition (1555)

37 [XII, app.] Catechizing the sign of the cross

38 [6087] Consoling the mother of a student (1556)

39 [6454] Norms for food in Louvain (1556)

40 [6677] Reacting to obstacles in Zaragoza (1556)

THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

Introduction

Annotations

First Week

Principle and Foundation

Particular Daily Examen

General Examen

First – Fourth Exercise: on sins

Fifth Exercise: on hell

Additions

Second Week

The call of the king

First Day

First Contemplation: on the Incarnation

Second Contemplation: on the Nativity

Fifth Contemplation: use of the senses

Notes

Fourth Day

Meditation on Two Standards

Meditation on three classes of persons

Three kinds of humility

Elections

Preambles

Three Times, and Two Ways in the Third Time

For amendment and reform of one’s personal life

Third Week

Rules as regards eating

Fourth Week

Notes

Additional Material

Contemplation for attaining love

Three Ways of praying

The Mysteries of the life of Christ Our Lord

Rules to understand movements in the soul

First Week

Second Week

Rules for alms-giving

Notes for the understanding of scruples

Rules for a true attitude of mind within the Church

Appendix: Text of Prayers mentioned in The Spiritual Exercises

Notes

Index

Preface

Occasionally a writer’s influence is in indirect proportion to the size of his work: there can be few more decisive examples of this phenomenon than Ignatius Loyola. The only work of his to be published in his own lifetime was a Latin translation, made by a French colleague, of a very short handbook written in Spanish and bearing the title The Spiritual Exercises. Only 500 copies were printed and it is clear that Ignatius was extremely loath to distribute this book. Who in his day would have imagined that one day he would be included in the Penguin Classics series? To carry the paradox even further, the strongest advocate for the key importance of Ignatius as a writer has been not a member of the Society he founded, and not even a confessional believer in Christianity, but a sophisticated agnostic, the acute literary critic and pioneer in semiotics, Roland Barthes. He pointed out that Loyola shares with Sade and Fourier the distinction of being a ‘logothete’, one of the fondateurs de langues,¹ and he analyses with great finesse the levels of language, the conceptual architectonics and the sensitivity to signs to be found in the Exercises.

One may be excused for thinking that Barthes founded his appreciation of Loyola simply on the Exercises. In reality he also had access to a French translation of the Spiritual Diary, and he mentions in passing the ‘Autobiography’.² This recognition of the importance of Loyola’s other writings, in particular of those writings in which he was personally committed, underlies the publication of the present collection of Personal Writings, which has been conceived primarily as a first-hand introduction to a remarkable man, whose influence in the development of spiritual awareness has been unique. The texts are chosen leaving to one side his other writings that enter self-consciously into the public domain: thus Ignatius’s major work, the Constitutions, the foundation document for the Society of Jesus, is not represented here and from his extant correspondence only a tiny proportion (as explained below), with the minimum of ‘official’ documents, has been included.

This collection opens with the Reminiscences: some may wonder if this text, preserved in the memory of a disciple serving as a human dictaphone, strictly deserves to be accepted as a ‘writing’ of Ignatius, but the force of his personality is certainly mirrored in these pages as Ignatius recounts his early life prior to his work as Superior General of the Society of Jesus. Next comes The Spiritual Diary, dating from 1544–45, with the Pros and Cons as a necessary preliminary. It is followed by forty Letters, each with its own short presentation and notes. In fourth place, and treated rather as an Appendix, the text of the Spiritual Exercises is printed once more.

The appeal of writings such as the last may have to remain something of an acquired taste. However, it will help if a sharp distinction is drawn between the main texts in this collection and that of the Spiritual Exercises (reproduced here as an indispensable background to all the other writings). The Exercises originated in the form of prayer notes, outlines of sequences of thoughts that had helped Ignatius as he reflected in silence before God. They take on meaning only in that sort of context. But the difficulty increases because these random notes were subsequently placed in a deliberate order, designed to foment a process (or dialectique as one outstanding French commentator called it³) within which they take on a peculiar power. When removed from their context they become as pointless as swimming instructions given to somebody who has no access to water. Fortunately this is not true of the main body of writings represented here. Although very personal, they attempt to communicate directly, or they try to pin down in words, experiences that may not be at everybody’s disposal. Unlike the Exercises they are not attempting to initiate a dialogue between a person and the divine (l’interlocution divine, as Barthes termed it), though they will have a special interest for those interested in mystical phenomena as such, or in persons who claim to have experienced them. And clearly they will also have an interest for those who have heard of Loyola and the Jesuits, but have never had the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of either. Finally, if one compares the Personal Writings with the Exercises one sees how Ignatius learnt from his own rich experience of the One he called ‘God’, and yet at the same time could distance himself from it so as to make available what he had learned to a wide range of people. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins remarked that ‘the effect of studying masterpieces is to make me admire and do otherwise’.⁴ The Personal Writings may well present us with something to admire; the Spiritual Exercises aim to help us discover how we might do otherwise.

Among those to be thanked for their help with this edition, William Hewett, the Jesuit founder of Inigo Enterprises in London, must come first in this list; it was he who encouraged, cajoled, and found the resources at the critical initial moments; this volume contains texts originally published by him, and, it is hoped, will encourage others to profit from his further publications.⁵ Those who have collaborated in the production of this book are mentioned in the introductions to the various sections, but a special word of thanks is due to Michael Ivens and Philip Endean, who were the most closely involved. Paul Keegan, the Advisory Editor of Penguin Classics, Michael Campbell-Johnston, former Provincial of the British Jesuits, and my Campion Hall community have all put me very much in their debt.

1 Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, Editions du Seuil, Paris 1971; however, the essay on Loyola first appeared in Tel Quel 38, 1969 under the title ‘Comment parler à Dieu?’ two years after the first publication of the essay on Sade.

2 He uses the French title Récit du Pèlerin, published here as Reminiscences.

3 Gaston Fessard, La dialectique des Exercices spirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola, Aubier, Paris 1956.

4 The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges, ed. C. C. Abbott, Oxford University Press, London 1935, Letter 166, p. 291.

5 For information on these and other ventures, contact Inigo Enterprises, 1 Wickham Drive, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex BN6 9AP.

Chronology

Glossary

affections/attachments (afecciones) Key terms in the psychological vocabulary of the Spiritual Exercises (Exx.); they refer to all the feelings of liking and disliking that well up in the heart and can impede objective judgement; they operate on many levels of the self, but those called in question in the Exx. are the profound influences that alter perceptions of reality; in English this sense of ‘affection’ has been almost lost (but cp. ‘well affected’ or ‘disaffected’).

application of the senses (traer los sentidos) Translated here as ‘bringing the senses to bear’ (Exx. 121–26), or ‘prayer of the senses’ (it was the Latin version that led to the now traditional title ‘application of the senses’); this is a method in prayer by which one deliberately tries to imagine particular sensual details (sounds, colours, etc.) of a Gospel or other scene in order to feel part of it in a reflective, contemplative way. Ignatius seems to have been temperamentally of unusual aesthetic sensitivity, and this ‘prayer of the senses’ enabled him to practise a deep prayer, somewhat belied by its title, and really the culmination of a day of prayer.

coadjutors Members of the Society who are not ‘professed’, and therefore originally expected to be less mobile; they could be ‘spiritual’ coadjutors if they were priests, and ‘temporal’ coadjutors if they were laymen; these grades were instituted in 1546 and still exist, if in a modified form.

collateral A counsellor appointed to help certain superiors; although Ignatius was partial to the use of such officials, the post was later found to be impractical and abandoned. See síndico (below).

colloquy (coloquio) A quasi-technical term invented by Ignatius to indicate the prayer of familiar conversation that he encourages as the culmination of an exercise, and which calls for special reverence (Exx. 3); its ‘normal’ place comes towards the end (following the overall movement of prayer from mind to the heart), but it may occur spontaneously at any time (Exx. 53–54, 109, 199).

composition (composición) A preliminary to prayer, as one ‘composes’ oneself, by ‘composing’ (= recalling to mind) the locale of the scene being contemplated or by imagining a suitable setting for a topic, e.g. a happy, or a shameful, or an awesome situation (Exx. 47, 151, 232).

consolations (consolaciones) Exx. 316, 329–36; the complete gratuitousness of God-given consolation (consolation ‘without cause’) strongly impressed Ignatius and steered him clear of the Pelagian leanings that some critics have suspected in his teaching, but left him open to attack as an ‘illuminist’ heretic.

Constitutions Written by Ignatius (with some reluctance as he would have preferred the members to be guided by an unwritten esprit de corps) between his appointment as Superior General (1541) and 1550, the Holy Year proclaimed by the Pope, when they were submitted to the judgement of as many of the original group as could come to Rome. They were gradually publicized by close associates deputed by him and had not been officially promulgated at Ignatius’s death.

contemplation A traditional term used by Ignatius (along with the term ‘meditation’) in a personal way. For him, whereas one ‘contemplates’ when praying about the person of Christ, one ‘meditates’ when praying about certain truths (mainly First Week subjects and the fourth day exercises of the Second Week). While for ‘contemplation’ the imagination unlocks the door, and leads to intimate, receptive prayer of the heart, for ‘meditation’ thought is initially required (as one ponders), even if ideally the latter will also merge into the former. But this is a far cry from the technical use of ‘contemplation’ to mean a form of infused mystical prayer.

discernment (discreción) The Ignatian quality par excellence, and the key to the whole process of the Exercises, which are designed to facilitate a just appraisal, before God, of the movements felt in the heart and weighed by the mind (the consolations and desolations that figure so prominently, Exx. 6 and 328); Ignatius’s discovery of this ability triggered his conversion, and guided him throughout his life.

examens The practice of self-correction recommended in the Exercises, Exx. 24f.

Exercises The term is explained in Annotation 1 (Exx. 1); Ignatius clearly intended his Spiritual Exercises, at least in their full form, for a restricted number of individuals, but the emphasis from the beginning is on openness and generosity (Exx. 5) rather than will-power.

feel The Spanish word sentir is a favourite of Ignatius, and to accentuate this it is usually translated here by ‘feel’, even if it has a wider gamut of meanings (e.g. ‘to be aware’).

First Companions Pierre Favre (the only priest in the group), Nicolás Bobadilla, Diego Laínez, Simão Rodrigues, Alfonso Salmerón, Francis Xavier, along with Ignatius made an initial vow at Montmartre, Paris, on 15 August 1534; the vow was repeated in 1535 and 1536, and although Ignatius was absent, the others were joined by new ‘companions’, viz. Jean Codure, Claude Le Jay and Paschase Broët. These men later came to a mutual decision to found the Society of Jesus as a religious order (1539).

indifference (ser indiferente) One of the key concepts in the Exx. (see 23, 157, 179), yet easily misunderstood if taken in a philosophical rather than a religious sense; one may ‘feel’ far from indifferent, but be prepared to wish to relinquish something out of love of God.

Institute The whole ethos (spirit, moral body, Constitutions) of a religious order.

mortal sins In the Exx. ‘mortal sins’ can be either particular grave, deliberate actions (the traditional examples being homicide, adultery and apostasy), or – and in this case the translation ‘capital sins’ is given – the seven ‘vices’, habitual tendencies to evil (like pride, gluttony, avarice, etc.). But the two senses are often intertwined, and further confused by a sixteenth-century moral teaching which tended to blunt the spiritual sense of sin as the profound rejection of (and death to) God.

narrative Literally the ‘history’ (historia), a regular preamble to prayer; usually the recall of a particular Gospel passage or story, but in a wider sense any form of preliminary review of the subject-matter, with a characteristic preference for the concrete over the abstract (Exx. 2,102, 111, 137 etc.).

professed (profesos) Priest members of the Society with final vows (included among these being a formal commitment to go to any country to which the Pope might wish to send them); initially (1540) the number was limited to sixty, but the restriction was soon lifted (1544).

Provincial The Superior with responsibility for a particular geographical area.

repetition A favourite technique of Ignatius, and easily misunderstood: an exercise is not to be simply ‘repeated’, but a selection is made from the material previously used, attention focusing on those insights and feelings that stand out, allowing prayer to well up, without haste or strain as the rhythm of the day moves from the head to the heart (Exx. 62, 118).

scholastics Members of the Society who are in training, either for the priesthood or for further studies; this period ends with final vows.

síndico From the Greek word meaning something like ‘public prosecutor’, but applied to an office customary in medieval universities; the post is mentioned several times in the Constitutions. Although similar to the collateral (Const. 505), he is expected to be more critical.

soul Either, in a more precise sense, the spiritual component in the body–soul dichotomy, or more in general, a human person.

spirits (espíritus) A classical term, dating back to the Desert Fathers at least, to refer to various psychological phenomena, roughly good and bad ‘feelings’ that are pictured as personified; see Exx. 8, 9, 313–36.

vows Formal promises to God to observe certain obligations. The usual religious vows cover poverty (renunciation of all rights to private possession), chastity (the practice of sexual purity), and obedience (willingness to accept orders from a legitimate superior); vows in the Society of Jesus can be ‘first vows’ at the end of the novitiate or ‘final vows’ at the end of training. On the danger of rushing (or pushing) into vows, see Exx. 15.

Bibliography

IPARRAGUIRRE, Ignacio, Obras completas de San Ignacio de Loyola. Edición Manual, BAC, Madrid, 1st ed. 1963 (5th ed. 1991)

(English trans.) GANSS, George E., and a group of English-speaking Jesuits including Parmananda Divarkar (Autobiography), Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works, Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah 1991

(French trans.) GIULIANI, Maurice, and a group of French Jesuits including Antoine Lauras and Jean-Claude Dhôtel (Autobiography), Gervais Dumeige (Letters), Ignace de Loyola: Écrits, Collection Christus No. 76, Textes, Desclée de Brouwer, Bellarmin, Paris 1991

LARRAÑAGA, Victoriano, Obras completas de San Ignacio de Loyola, I: Autobiografía (with a very full commentary), BAC, Madrid 1947

RAMBLA BLANCH, Josep María, El Peregrino: Autobiografía de San Ignacio de Loyola, Mensajero and Sal Terrae, Bilbao/Santander 1991 (1st ed. in Catalan 1983)

(English trans.) DIVARKAR, Parmananda, A Pilgrim’s Testament: The Memoirs of Ignatius of Loyola, Rome 1983 (reprinted in the Complete Works, ed. George E. Ganss)

(English trans.) TYLENDA, Joseph N., A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, Michael Glazier, Wilmington, DE 1985

(English trans.) YEOMANS, William, Inigo: Original Testament, The Autobiography of St Ignatius Loyola, Inigo Texts (William Hewett), London 1985

(German trans.) SCHNEIDER, Burkhart, Ignatius von Loyola: Der Bericht des Pilgers, Herder, Freiburg/Basel/Vienna 1977

(German trans.) KNAUER, Peter, Ignatius von Loyola: Der Bericht des Pilgers, Leipzig 1990

(English trans.) GANSS, George E., The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus: Translated with an Introduction and a Commentary, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St Louis, MO 1970

LARRAÑAGA, Victoriano, Obras completas de San Ignacio de Loyola, I: Autobiografía (with a very full commentary), BAC, Madrid 1947

THIO DE POL, Santiago, La Intimidad del Paregrino (remarkable edition of the original text with a Spanish paraphrase), Mensajero and Sal Terrae, Bilbao/Santander n.d.

(English trans.) YOUNG, William J., ‘The Spiritual Journal of Saint Ignatius’, Woodstock Letters 87 (1958), pp. 195–267 (repr. in Simon Decloux, Commentaries on the Letters and Spiritual Diary of St Ignatius Loyola, Rome 1980

(English trans.) MUNITIZ, Joseph A., Inigo: Discernment Log-Book, Inigo Enterprises, London 1987

(French trans.) GIULIANI, Maurice, Saint Ignace. Journal spirituel, Collection Christus, I, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1959 (completely revised version, in collaboration with P. A. Fabre, included in the French translation of Complete Works above-mentioned)

(German trans.) KNAUER, Peter (with introduction by Adolf Haas), Ignatius von Loyola. Das Geistliche Tagebuch, Herder, Freiburg 1961

CALVERAS, José (ed.), Ejercicios espirituales: Directorio y Documentos de S. Ignacio de Loyola, Editorial Balmes, Barcelona, 2nd ed. 1958

(English trans.) YOUNG, William J., Letters of St Ignatius of Loyola, Loyola University Press, Chicago 1959

BERTRAND, Dominique, La politique de Saint Ignace de Loyola: l’analyse sociale, (first major sociological study of the letters), Cerf, Paris 1985

CARAMAN, Philip, Ignatius Loyola (concise, factual and pleasant introduction), Collins, London 1990

DALMASES, Cándido de, Ignatius of Loyola; Founder of the Jesuits, His Life and Works (dry survey by a distinguished expert), Institute of Jesuit Sources, St Louis, MO 1985 (= El Padre Maestro Ignacio: Breve biografía Ignaciana, BAC, Madrid 1979; 2nd ed. 1982)

ENDEAN, Philip, ‘Who do you say Ignatius is? Jesuit fundamentalism and beyond’ (programme article on source criticism), Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 19 (5), 1987

LONSDALE, David, Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality, Darton, Longman & Todd, London 1990

MEISSNER, W. W., SJ, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (an important Freudian analysis of personality traits), Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1992

O’MALLEY, John W., The First Jesuits (masterly historical study of the nascent Society of Jesus), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1993

RAHNER, Hugo, Saint Ignatius Loyola: Letters to Women (pioneer exploration of Ignatius’s relations with women), Herder, Freiburg; Nelson, Edinburgh–London 1960 (= Ignatius von Loyola, Briefwechsel mit Frauen, Herder, Freiburg 1956)

RAVIER, André, Ignatius of Loyola and the Founding of the Society of Jesus (original study of key administrative problems), Ignatius Press, San Francisco 1987 (= Ignace de Loyola fonde la Compagnie de Jésus, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1974)

SCHURHAMMER, Georg (trans. M. Joseph Costelloe, SJ), Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times,4 vols; I: Europe 1506–1541, II: India 1541–1545, III: Indonesia and India 1545–1549, IV; Japan and China 1549–1552 (encyclopedic biography of Ignatius’s contemporary), The Jesuit Historical Institute, Rome 1973, 1977, 1980, 1982 (= Franz Xaver: sein Leben und seine Zeit, Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1955, 1963, 1971, 1973)

TELLECHEA IDÍGORAS, I. (tr. Cornelius Michael Buckley), Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint (original, well-researched life by Spanish scholar), Loyola University Press, Chicago 1994

Since 1996 the most important addition to the Bibliography is the commentary on the Exercises published by Michael Ivens, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises: A Handbook for Retreat Directors (Gracewing and Inigo Enterprises, Leominster 1998); he has drawn on a translation of the early ‘directories’ to the Exercises also published in 1996 by Martin E. Palmer, On Giving the Spiritual Exercises (The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St Louis). The translation of the Exercises to be found in the Ivens volume has now been published separately (Gracewing and Inigo Enterprises 2004).

As Carl Jung had lectured on the Exercises, Kenneth L. Becker examines his comments in Unlikely Companions: C. G. Jung on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola (Gracewing and Inigo Enterprises 2001). Feminist issues in the Exercises are explored in The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed: Uncovering Liberating Possibilities for Women by Katherine Dyckman, Mary Garvin and Elizabeth Liebert (Paulist Press, New York 2001). The sources of the Exercises have been investigated in a collection of Spanish studies edited by Juan Plazaola, Las fuentes de los Ejercicios Espirituales de San Ignacio (Mensajero, Bilbao 1998). On Ignatius himself an ambitious work also in Spanish planned to be in two volumes has been launched: Ignacio Cacho, Iñigo de Loyola: ese enigma (Instituto Ignacio de Loyola, Mensajero, Bilbao 2003), and the psychoanalyst William Meissner has followed up his earlier work on Ignatius (see above) with a study of the Exercises, To the Greater Glory of God: A Psychological Study of Ignatian Spirituality (Marquette University Press 1999). David Lonsdale has also added a new chapter to a second edition (2000) of his book. Philip Endean, the co-editor of the present work, has contributed an in-depth theological study, Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality (Oxford Theological Monographs, Oxford 2001), and the American scholar Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle studies the rhetorical aspects of the Reminiscences (Autobiography) in her book Loyola’s Acts: The Rhetoric of the Self (University of California, Berkeley 1997). A contemporary account of Ignatius written by a Portuguese Jesuit, Luis Gonçalves da Câmara, is due to be published in English translation, Remembering Iñigo (trans. A. Eaglestone and J. A. Munitiz, S.J., Institute of Jesuit Sources, St Louis, along with Gracewing and Inigo Enterprises, Leominster 2004). Finally, the journal The Way (published from Campion Hall, Oxford) regularly publishes articles on Ignatian spirituality and makes a wide range of material available through its website (www.theway.org.uk).

REMINISCENCES

Introduction

1. This particular account of Ignatius’s life, written up from his own spoken narrative, seems to have arisen from initiatives taken by two of his followers: Jerónimo Nadal, who perhaps did more than anyone else to consolidate and institutionalize the Society of Jesus, and Luis Gonçalves da Câmara, the faithful, almost adoring scribe to whom Ignatius recounted his memories.

Since I knew that the holy Fathers, the founders of any monastic institute, normally gave those coming after, as a substitute for a bequest, such advice on which they would be able to rely as something that could be of help to them in attaining perfection of virtue, I was on the lookout for a time when I could tactfully ask Fr Ignatius for the same thing. It came in 1551 when we were together, as Fr Ignatius said, ‘Just now I was higher than the sky’, having undergone (I think) some ecstasy or rapture of mind, as he often used to. Reverently I asked, ‘What kind of thing is this, Father?’. He diverted the talk to other things. Thinking therefore that time to be opportune, I asked and entreated Father to be pleased to expound to us how the Lord had guided him from the beginning of his conversion, so that this exposition could take for us the place of a bequest and fatherly teaching.¹

Gonçalves da Câmara tells us of how Nadal came back to Rome from Spain in 1554, when the story-telling was in abeyance:

But when Fr Nadal came, being very pleased with what had been begun, he told me to pester Father, telling me many times that in nothing could Father do more good for the Society than in doing this, and that this was truly to found the Society.

talk in detail about our Father Ignatius, the beginning used by God as a means for imparting this grace, and willed to be the one to channel this vocation to others.²

Though the first Jesuits always acknowledged the initial inspiration of Ignatius in bringing them together, their earliest deliberations and decision-processes seem to have been corporate, with Ignatius as a kind of first among equals. It was the second generation of Jesuit leaders, notably Nadal, who stressed the image of Ignatius as solitary founder, not without resistance from some of their predecessors.³

2. Gonçalves da Câmara, a Portuguese, was also motivated by concern for the Society’s healthy growth. He had come to Rome in 1553 in order to report on the troubled affairs of the Portuguese province (documented in a number of the Letters in the present volume), and had been a leading instigator in the removal from office of Simão Rodrigues, the first Provincial and one of Ignatius’s Paris companions. He stayed in Rome until October 1555, becoming minister of the Roman house (in overall charge of the house’s practical administration) in October 1554. While in this latter post, he kept a notebook (conventionally entitled the Memoriale) recording various things that Ignatius said and did. He tells us that one of the reasons he had long wanted to come to Rome was

the desire to have obedience of the understanding, of which I had heard so much talk in the Society. And it seemed to me that to be able to attain this virtue a good means would be to hear the teaching from the person whose ideas regarding matters of the Society are to be regarded similarly to the first principles of any science: it is neither customary nor possible to demonstrate these principles within the science.⁴

‘Obedience of the understanding’ is a juridical term, and may now sound degrading;⁵ for Gonçalves da Câmara it must have been full of associations arising from the Portuguese conflicts. But Gonçalves da Câmara’s talk of first principles here points to an insight he only half grasps, namely that a religious organization’s juridical language can be properly understood only in and through a living relationship: a relationship with the persons who give the organization concerned its verve and inspiration.

In the year 1553, one Friday in the morning, 4 August, the vigil of Our Lady of the Snows, as Father was in the garden near the house or apartment which is called ‘The Duke’s’,⁶ I began to give him an account of some characteristic features of my soul, and among others I told him about vainglory. The remedy Father gave me was that I should often make an act of attributing everything in me to God, working to offer him all the good I might find in myself, acknowledging it as his and giving him thanks for it. On this he spoke to me in such a way that it greatly consoled me, in such a way that I couldn’t hold back the tears. And so it was that Father told me how he had been troubled by this vice for two years, to such an extent that, when he was getting on the boat in Barcelona for Jerusalem, he didn’t dare tell anyone he was going to Jerusalem, and likewise with other similar details.⁷ And he added further how much peace in this regard he had later felt in his soul.

An hour or two later we went into dinner. While Master Polanco and I were eating with him, our Father said that Master Nadal and others of the Society had many times asked him to do something, and that he had never made up his mind about it, but that, having recollected himself in his room after having spoken with me, he had had such great devotion and such a great inclination to do it, and (speaking in such a way as to show that God had given him great clarity on his duty to do it) he had made his mind up completely. And the thing was to give an account of all that had passed through his soul up to that time. And he had also decided that it was to be myself to whom he would reveal these things.

Nadal can speak of how God founds the Society in Ignatius;⁸ Gonçalves da Câmara illustrates what that means in the life of his followers.

3. Despite what has just been said, Ignatius still seems to have been hesitant about sharing his story. Gonçalves da Câmara’s account continues as follows:

Father was then very ill, and never accustomed to promising himself a day of life. On the contrary, when someone says, ‘I’ll do this in two weeks’ time or a week’s time’, Father always says, as if astounded, ‘Really? And you expect to live that long?’. Nevertheless, that time he said that he expected to live three or four months in order to finish this thing.

The next day I spoke to him asking when he wanted us to begin. And he answered me that I should remind him about it each day (I can’t remember how many days) until he was in a position to do it. Then, not being in such a position given his occupations, he later decided that I should remind him about it every Sunday. Then in September (I can’t remember what day), Father called me and began to tell me his whole life, including his mischiefs as a lad, clearly and distinctly, with all their surrounding details. Afterwards he called me three or four times in the same month and arrived with the story at when he was in Manresa for some days, as can be seen written in a different handwriting.

Gonçalves da Câmara goes on to describe Ignatius’s style of speaking and his own method of transcription. Without saying anything to Ignatius, he would go off immediately and write the narrative up in note form. Later he would make a fuller version. This process continued into September 1553, when it broke off:

From then on until Fr Nadal came, on 18 October 1554, Father was always excusing himself with various illnesses and with different matters of business that would arise, saying to me, ‘When such and such a business is finished, remind me about it’. And when that business was finished, I would remind him about it, and he would say, ‘Now we’re in the middle of this other matter; when it’s finished, remind me about it’.

He spoke in the same way to Father many times, and Father told me that I should remind him about it when the business of the college’s endowment was finished. And when that was finished, ‘when the matter of Prester John was finished and the post was gone’.

We began to continue the story on 9 March. Then Pope Julius III began to be dangerously ill, and died on the 23rd. Father went on deferring the matter until there was a Pope. He too, when there was one, at once fell ill and died (that was Marcellus). Father delayed until the election of Pope Paul IV.⁹ And after that, with the great heat and the many occupations, he was always waylaid until 21 September, when there began to be moves to send me to Spain.¹⁰

On this account I put much pressure on Father to deliver what he had promised me. So he fixed it then for the 22nd in the morning, in the Rossi Tower.¹¹ Thus, when I had finished saying mass,¹² I went up to him to ask if it was time. He replied that I was to go and wait for him in the Rossi Tower, so that when he himself came I would be there too. I gathered that I would have to wait for a long time. And while I was delayed in one of the corridors with some brother asking me some point of business, Father came and rebuked me because, having transgressed obedience, I wasn’t waiting for him in the Rossi Tower. And he was unwilling to do anything that day. Then we really insisted with him, and so he returned to the Rossi Tower, and dictated walking about, as he had always dictated.

In order to look at his face I was always coming a little closer, with Father saying to me, ‘Keep the rule’.¹³ And when one time I ignored this and came close, and had fallen into this two or three times, he said this to me and went away. In the end he came back again to finish dictating what has been written here, again in the tower. But since I was by now long into preparing for the journey (for the day before the departure was the last on which Father spoke to me about this material), I wasn’t able to write a full version of everything in Rome. And because in Genoa I didn’t have a Spanish amanuensis, I dictated in Italian what I had brought with me from Rome written in note form. I put an end to this writing in December 1555 in Genoa.

4. In the years immediately following Ignatius’s death, it seems that this text was widely diffused. Gonçalves da Câmara made a number of small additions, on the basis of which the scholarly editors of the original conclude that there were at least thirteen manuscripts in circulation.¹⁵ A Latin translation was made by Anibal du Coudray between 1559 and 1561, which was corrected by Nadal himself. In 1567, however, Francis Borgia, now Superior General of the Society, recalled all copies of the manuscript in order to leave the field clear for the first formal biography of Ignatius by Pedro de Ribadeneira.¹⁶

5. ‘Reminiscences’ is one of many titles that have been given to this text. Nadal called it ‘Things done by Fr Ignatius (Acta P. Ignatii) as Fr Luis Gonçalves first wrote them, taking them from the mouth of the Father himself’, and ‘Some things done by Rev Fr Ignatius, first founder under God of the Society of Jesus’. Modern convention has tended to use the word ‘autobiography’ while remaining uneasy about it. Many versions take up the term by which Ignatius refers to himself, and offer a title such as ‘The pilgrim’s story’. The variations indicate the difficulty in determining the nature of the text.

His Notebook shows a scrupulous concern to distinguish what Ignatius actually said from his own paraphrases;¹⁷ here in the Reminiscences¹⁸

1491	The date of birth remains problematic, though confirmed by (1) the testimony of Ignatius’s wet-nurse, María de Garín, (2) a legal document dated 1505 only valid if Ignatius was at least fourteen years of age, combined with other testimony that he was not born before 1491. The family was distinguished in the Basque country, possessed considerable land, and had contacts with the Castilian nobility. The baptismal names were Iñigo López, the first of these being the one most used until the name ‘Ignatius’ began to appear.
1506	Move to Arévalo (some miles north of Avila) to serve as page in the household of Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, Treasurer of King Ferdinand of Castile; formal courtly education.
1515	Summoned for involvement in brawl near Loyola.
1517	Financial ruin and death of his patron; Iñigo obtains post in the retinue of Antonio Manrique, Duke of Nájera and Viceroy of Navarre.
1521	Successful diplomatic mission in Guipúzcoa; then disastrous defence of Pamplona, where his right leg is shattered; operation and convalescence; conversion experience.
1522	Visits Montserrat; then moves temporarily to Manresa, where he leads a life of prayer and penance.
1523	Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, via Rome and Venice.
1524	Settles in Barcelona, starts private studies: first text of Spiritual Exercises (?); Letter 1.
1526	Moves (with three followers) to Alcalá for University studies; first ecclesiastical trial.
1527	Second and third trials; moves to Salamanca; interrogated by Dominicans, new trial.
1528	Moves alone to Paris, and re-starts studies.
1529–35	Arts course, with begging journeys to Flanders and England in search of funds; ‘First Companions’ contacted.
1532	Letters 2, 3.
1534	‘Vows’ at Montmartre.
1535	Travels to Spain (return visit to Loyola) and Italy.
1536	Private theology studies in Venice; Letters 4–7.
1537	First Companions regroup; ordination to priesthood, Letter 8; move to Rome, with vision at La Storta; well received by Pope Paul III.
1538	After one year’s wait, proposed move to Jerusalem seen to be impossible; meets strong opposition in Rome, overcome by recourse to Pope; acquittal at trial; Letters 9–10.
1539	Deliberations about founding of new order; project arouses strong criticism.
1540	Papal Bull founding the Society of Jesus; departure of Xavier for India.
1541	Preliminary draft of Constitutions; election as Superior General and first formal vows.
1542–43	Growth of correspondence; active philanthropic work in Rome (with prostitutes, Jews, children).
1544–45	Discernment process recorded – Spiritual Diary – and begins writing of Constitutions.
1546	Society takes active part in Council of Trent (Letter 14); Francis Borgia joins secretly (Letter 13); opposition to episcopal dignities (Letter 15).
1547–49	Arrival of Polanco as secretary (Letter 18); alarming developments in Portugal (Letters 16, 20) and Gandía (Letters 17, 22–23); educational interests (Letter 24).
1550	Holy Year; finishes first draft of Constitutions; Francis Borgia in Rome announces his membership of the Society.
1551	Initial approval of Constitutions by all available First Companions; letter of resignation (Letter 26); founding of Roman College.
1552–54	Despite chronic ill-health (especially in 1553) active administration, with particular reflection on nature of obedience (Letters 28, 31), involvement in high political spheres (Letter 30) and education.
1553, 1555	Dictation of Reminiscences; continued administration (Letters 34–40).
1556	Constant ill-health, then sudden death in the morning of 31 July.

AHSI	Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu
BAC	Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (cf. Complete Works)
Const.	Constitutions (MHSI numbering)
Dict. Sp.	Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, ed. M. Viller and others, Beauchesne, Paris 1937–95
Epist.	Letters (MHSI ed.)
Exx.	Exercises (MHSI numbering)
FD	Fontes Documentales (MHSI)
FN	Fontes Narrativi (MHSI)
MHSI	Monumenta Historica Societatis lesu
MI	Monumenta Ignatiana (MHSI)
MN	Monumenta Nadal (MHSI)
PG	Patrologia Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, Paris 1857–66
PL	Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, Paris 1844–64
Rem.	Reminiscences (= Autobiography)

SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA Personal Writings

Contents

Preface

Chronology

Glossary

Bibliography

REMINISCENCES

Introduction