the life of st. ignatius of loyola

AMONGST the most celebrated men of the sixteenth century stands forth prominently St. Ignatius of Loyola, whilst few have exercised a more profound and lasting, and at the same time more beneficial influence upon modern times. All the secret of his greatness lay in his power to discern the wants of the age, and in that genius which foresaw the dangers certain to accrue to the Church from the rise of a heresy which was to deny the very basis of her authority. The history of St. Ignatius is the history of the Society which he founded. This was the work of his life; and this is the best title which he has to renown before God and man. But in order to understand the nature of the mission intrusted to him, and the spirit of the Society which he founded, we must take a retrospective view of the times in which it was established and observe narrowly the circumstances which determined the character of his Institute.

Though the Church is ever the Spouse of Christ, without spot, which never admits one shadow of change in the deposit of the truths which He has committed to her to interpret, nor of the inheritance of sanctity and virtues which He has purchased for her at the price of His Blood; yet He permits in His mysterious providence that, according to time and place, she should more prominently develope the truth or virtue of which mankind has then and there

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more special need, and which is more particularly ignored by the children of men. He commonly makes use for this purpose of some Religious Order, which He animates and penetrates with His Spirit, so that the truth to be imparted to the world shines forth in it brightly and conspicuously. Each one of the Religious Orders may be regarded as a branch of the Church into which the mysterious sap that circulates through the whole living tree flows more freely and abundantly, there to take some special form and throw out some particular fruit of benediction and salvation suitable to each successive age. For God, by an admirable condescension of His love, vouchsafes to accommodate His gifts of grace, not only to our wants, but even to our natural tastes and dispositions, so as to secure for them more easy access to our minds and hearts; and although one and the same in essence, His grace is of all things the most supple in its motions and most varied in the form of its exterior manifestations. So that the Apostle, describing it in its distinctive character and giving it in a manner its own true title, styles it the "multiform grace of God."

Thus in the sixth century, when the West, devastated by the inroad of barbarians, presented everywhere a scene of ruin, when force had taken the place of right, and the corruption of the expiring Roman Empire was mingled with the rude and savage manners of newly risen and victorious nations, when the minds of men were most averse to labour and penance, God raised up a man and a Religious Order to recall to a forgetful world this double obligation, to arouse it from the sleep of sloth and inactivity, and to save the sweet germ of gentleness and Christian charity that was in danger of being utterly destroyed amidst the angry passions of incessant war. St. Benedict and the Benedictine Order, his children, under the movement of the grace of God and of His Holy Spirit, saved not only the souls for whose good and everlasting salvation they laboured, but they saved civilization also, and may be justly

considered as the fathers and founders of the constitutions of modern nations.

Again in the thirteenth century, when socialism made its first appearance in Europe, and when the poor, having lost the spirit and true glory of their condition, were demanding in the name of Jesus Christ and of the Gospel a share in the goods of this world, which they had no longer the wisdom to despise, and were rising in many parts against the rich and powerful, whose baneful example had taught them to set their hopes and affections on the things of this world, then did God conform His gifts of grace to the fresh exigencies of the times and to the wants of the Church and raise in its beauty the flower of Evangelical poverty and bid it bloom. In the sight of an astounded world He exhibited its most perfect pattern in that man of sublime simplicity, whose folly confounded the world's wisdom and extorted from it a cry of admiration. To this day the children of St. Francis have retained the same ardent love of poverty which characterized their holy Founder, and still show how truly his lineaments can be distinguished in them. It is remarkable that by the marvellous designs of God each Founder of a Religious Order gives to the family, of which he is the parent, characteristic features which neither time nor circumstance can wholly efface. All Religious Orders have not preserved their first fervour, some have needed a reform; but even in the most relaxed the type imprinted by their Father can be traced, as though it were more indelibly marked than even those which have their source in relationship of flesh and blood. After the lapse of thirteen centuries St. Benedict can recognize his children, and St. Francis after six hundred years can acknowledge his own spiritual family.

At the epoch of the sixteenth century the Church found itself assailed by one of the most furious tempests it had ever encountered. It was not merely one of its doctrines that it was called upon to defend, but the very basis and

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