Following in the footsteps of Ignatius - Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

National Catholic Reporter, April 13, 2001 by Margot Patterson

"He was so enamored with all this that he did not see how impossible it would all be, because the lady was of no ordinary rank," he wrote, describing himself in the third person. It's speculated that the lady in question was Dona Catalina, the sister of Emperor Charles V who became the wife of John III of Portugal.

Wounded defending the fortress at Pamplona in a battle between the Spanish and the French in 1521, Inigo convalesced at home in the castle of Loyola where he underwent several grueling operations. A broken leg had to be reset when it didn't heal properly. When it finally did heal, the bone protruded below the knee, making that leg shorter than the other. Still very much the courtier aware of the importance of a fine leg in hose and tight-fitting boots, Ignatius made himself a martyr to fashion and ordered the doctors to shave off the offending knob of bone and stretch the leg till it was as long as his other. All of these operations were performed without anesthetic.

Laid up in bed, Ignatius asked for the chivalric romances he enjoyed reading, but the only books in the castle were a four-volume life of Christ and a book on the saints. He read these and began to mull over what was in them as well as his own responses to what he read. He noticed that thoughts of the world and the great deeds he would perform to win honor initially delighted him but afterward made him dissatisfied, while thoughts of the saints and their experiences kept him contented. Thus began, at the age of 30, his spiritual conversion.

Inspired by his readings and eager to do penance for his sins, Ignatius resolved to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Dressed as a knight errant, he set out from Loyola in 1522 and traveled east to the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia. There, after a full confession of his past in writing that took him three days to complete, he traded his clothes for a sackcloth tunic and sandals and observed a vigil at arms at the feet of the Black Madonna. He laid his sword and dagger at the foot of the Madonna and vowed perpetual chastity.

Continuing his journey toward Barcelona, the point of embarkation for Rome, where pilgrims went to seek permission to visit the Holy Land from the pope, Ignatius stopped at the town of Manressa. Though he had planned to stay just a few days, he stayed 10 months, working in a hospice and praying sometimes seven hours a day. Initially content, Ignatius became tortured by scruples and his asceticism became more extreme. He fasted and scourged himself, eventually suffering not only from the effects of fasting and sleeplessness, but from depression as well. He was tempted to end his life.

His scruples were eventually put to rest by a spiritual vision, one he accounted the most significant of his life. It was these experiences in Manressa that Ignatius would draw on in writing his spiritual exercises, the outline of which was already prepared by the time he left Manressa and which would furnish him his apostolic mission.