Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus
31 July -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Religious, page 494
Born in 1491, the son of a Basque nobleman, Ignatius served
as a soldier and was wounded at the siege of Pamplona in
1521. During his convalescence he read a Life of Christ,
was converted and lived a life of prayer and penance, during
which he wrote the first draft of his Spiritual Exercises.
He gathered six disciples, and together they took vows of
poverty and chastity and promised to serve the Church either
by preaching in Palestine or in other ways that the Pope
thought fit. By 1540, Ignatius had won papal approval for
his embryonic order and the Society of Jesus was born. For
the next sixteen years he directed the work of the Jesuits
as it spread around the world, until his sudden death on
this day in 1556.