Founder of the Jesuit Order - Ignatius Loyola

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The founder of the Society of Jesus, Spanish (Basque) don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, was born in the castle of Loyola, in the province of Guipuzcoa in 1491. He was one of the strangest types of soldier monks ever created by the Catholic world. Of all the founders of religious orders, he may be the one whose personality left the strongest mark on the minds and behavior of his disciples and successors. This may be the explanation of the "trademark," a fact that goes as far as physical resemblance. Mr. Folliet quibbles about this fact, but many documents prove the "Jesuit" model that has taken shape over the centuries.

The most amusing of the testimonies was found in the Guimet museum. Against the golden background of a 16th-century screen, a Japanese artist has painted, with humor for his race, the mooring of the Portuguese, in fact the sons of Loyola, in the islands of Nipponese (another name for Japanese (Japan)). The astonishment of this nature-lover and the bright colors are evident in the way he depicted these long black shadows and their mournful faces, on which all the arrogance of a fanatical ruler was set. The resemblance between the work of the 16th century Orientalist and our Daumier of 1830 is easy for anyone to grasp.

Like many other saints, Inigo - who later "Romanized" his name and became Ignatius - did not seem by any means one who could enlighten his contemporaries. His turbulent youth was filled with mistakes and even "heinous crimes." The police report said he was "treacherous, violent and vindictive." All his biographers acknowledge that he was not inferior to his loyal friends in the violence of his instincts. "An unruly and conceited soldier," said one of his confidants. "He led a disorderly life when it came to women, gambling and dueling," added his secretary, Polanco. All this is now reaching us through his "spiritual son" - R.P. Rouquette, who tried to somehow explain and justify his hotheadedness, which eventually turned "ad majorem Dei gloriam" (to the greater glory of God).

As is typical of many heroes of the Roman church, an aggressive, physical blow was necessary to change his personality. He was claw of the treasury in Castilla until the disfavor of the master. Then he became a lord in the service of the Viceroy of Navarre. Being a courtier, the young man began the life of a soldier by defending Pamplona against the French commanded by the Count de Foix. The wounds that decided his future life were inflicted during this siege. A leg broken by a bullet caused him to be taken by the victorious French to his brother, Martin Garcia, at the castle of Loyola. He went through the ordeal without anesthesia, for the operation was performed twice, as it did not go well the first time. His leg was broken again and restored again. Anyone can understand that he only needed an experience like this to get a nervous breakdown. This "gift of tears" with which he was endowed "in abundance" - and which has been noted by his biographers - is perhaps only the result of his highly emotional nature, which has affected him ever since.

His only entertainment while lying wounded and in pain was reading "The Life of Christ" and "Lives of the Saints," the only books to be found in the castle.

As he was virtually uneducated and still under the influence of a great shock, the suffering of Christ and the martyrdoms of the saints had a lasting effect on him. This obsession set the lame warrior on the path of apostleship.

"He put the book to one side and dreamed all day. This dream was the introduction into adult life of children's games - straight from the imagination. If we allow this invasion of the mental sphere to enter, the results are neuroses and subjugation of the will. What is real takes second place."

At first glance, such a diagnosis seems unlikely for the founders of such an active order, nor for the other "great mystics" and founders of religious societies, each of whom apparently had great powers to organize. But it turns out that all of them are unable to resist an over-active imagination and, for them, the impossible becomes possible.

What the same author says on this subject: "I want to point out the obvious result of the practice of mysticism by one who possesses prodigious intelligence. The weak mind satisfying itself in mysticism is on shaky ground, but the intelligent mystic presents a far more dangerous attitude, as his intellect works wider and deeper...When myth takes hold of reality, it becomes mere fanaticism. An infection of the will that suffers partial enlargement or distortion.

Igancy was just such an example of "active mysticism" and "infection of the will". Nevertheless, the transformation from master-warrior to "general" of the most military order in the Catholic Church was very slow. There were many faltering steps before he found his proper calling. It is not our job to walk with him on all his paths. Let us recall the main points: in the spring of 1522 he left the castle of his ancestors with a mind that was destined to become a saint, similar to those whose edifying deeds he found in the bound volumes of books. Besides, wasn't it the Madonna who personally came to him one night, holding the baby Jesus in her hands? After a thorough confession at the monastery in Montserrat, he made plans to go to Jerusalem. After the plague found its way to Barcelona and sea traffic ceased, Ignatius had to stay for almost a year in Manresa. There he spent time in prayer, long fasting and flagellation, practicing all forms of penance, and he never forgot to intercede before the "tribunal of penance," even though his confession at Montserrat lasted a whole three days, such a confession would have been sufficient even for a less scrupulous sinner. All this presents quite clearly the mental and nervous state of man. At least rescued from the obsession of sin, deciding that it was just a trick of Satan, he devoted himself entirely to the varied and rich visions that haunted his feverish mind.

"It's because of the vision," - says H. Boehmer, "he began to eat meat again; it was a whole series of visions that revealed to him the mysteries of Catholic dogmas and helped him to live them truly: Thus, he meditates on the Trinity under the shape of a musical instrument with three strings; the mystery of the creation of the world through "something" misty and bright coming out of a sunbeam; the miraculous descent of Christ into the Eucharist as flashes of light introduced into the consecrated water when the priest holds it up during prayer; the human nature of Christ and the holy Virgin under the form of a dazzling white body; and finally Satan as a serpentine and flashing shape similar to many mysterious eyes." Isn't this the beginning of the familiar Jesuit understanding of the world?

Mr. Boehmer adds that the deep meaning of the dogmas reached him through transcendental intuition. "Many of the mysteries of faith and science became suddenly clear to him, and he later maintained that he had learned more by these brief moments than by jeoing all his hours over science. However, he could never explain what these mysteries were that had so suddenly become clear to him. They were only vague memories that had gone away, a feeling of something miraculous, as if in that moment he had become "a different person, with a different intelligence".

All this can be the result of a nervous disease and can be compared to what happens to opium smokers or hashish eaters. It is an expansion or increase of the ego, this illusion of growing beyond what is real, a flashing sensation that leaves only memories.

Blissful visions and illuminations were constant companions of his mystical life.

I never doubted the reality of these revelations. He chased Satan with a stick as if he were a rabid dog. He chatted with the Holy Spirit as if with another living person. He asked God, the Trinity and the Madonna for all his projects and wept for joy when they appeared to him. He had a foretaste of heavenly delight. The heavens were open to him, and God was visible.

Is this not a case of a person suffering from hallucinations? This will be the same visible and perceptible God that Loyola's spiritual sons will constantly offer to the world - not only for political reasons, based on the deep-seated tendencies in the human heart toward idolatry - but also by conviction, being well and truly indoctrinated. From the very beginning, medieval mysticism prevailed in the Society of Jesus; it is still a great entertainer, despite its intellectual aspects. Its basic axiom is: "to please everyone". Art, literature, science and even philosophy were mere means to catch souls, as was the leniency granted by the casuists (a person who bends facts to his own thesis), after which promiscuity was often approved. For this order there is no sphere where human weaknesses cannot be fought, to incite the spirit and will to surrender and go back to a more childlike and peaceful devotion. So their goal is to bring the "kingdom of God" according to their ideals. A great flock under the shepherd of the Holy Father. The fact that such scholars have such anachronistic ideals seems very strange, but there is undeniable confirmation of this often unnoticed fact: the primacy of the emotions in the life of the spirit. Besides, Kant said that every philosophy is but an expression of the temperament or character of the philosopher.

In addition to invidual methods, the Jesuit "temperament" seems to have been more or less united among them. "A concoction of piety and diplomacy, of asceticism and worldly wisdom, of mysticism and cool calculation, such was the character of Loyola, so it is the trade-mark of the order," - writes J. Huber in his book.

At first, each Jesuit chooses this particular order in particular because of his natural aptitude, but he becomes a true "son" of Loyola after rigorous testing and systematic training of no less than 15 years.

Thus the paradox of this order continued for 400 years: an order that tried to be 'intellectual' but at the same time always has, within the Roman church and society, the harshest disposition. "4

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