THE GREATNESS OF ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
Mgr. Ronald Knox was once asked to name six of the greatest men who ever lived. He astounded his audience because he, an Anglican Prelate at the time, had listed the Roman Catholic St. Ignatius of Loyola as one of them! In Robert Rusk’s History of Education, Ignatius of Loyola is listed as one of the thirteen greatest educators of all time… And R. Fulop Miller writes: ”Since the dawn of history there are few men who have followed out an idea to its bitter end with such iron logic, few men who have realized it with such an extraordinary output of energy, and exerted such a profound influence upon the thought and action of mankind as Ignatius of Loyola did.”
The greatness of Ignatius lies not only in his having personally scaled the greatest heights of sanctity, not only in his having founded a Religious Order that was radically innovative, but largely in this: that Ignatius ignited a fire that started a missionary movement of love and service, and gave an educational impetus that was unparalleled in the history of the Church. In the last 8 years of his life Ignatius opened 35 Schools and Colleges, and had started foundations for 5 more (a total of 40) when death overtook him in 1556.
Within 25 years these had grown to 144. Twenty years later the number had shot up to more than 250 spread all over the world – and these totally gratis! Small wonder that the Jesuits were called “The School Masters of Europe”. Names like Francis Xavier, Peter Claver, Jean de Brebeuf, Edmund Campion stir up all that is best and beautiful in us, and bear eloquent testimony to the quality of the fire that Ignatius ignited. An artist has captured this fiery missionary spirit in a picture showing a band of Jesuit missionaries setting sail for South America. On one of the sails is the motto “Unus non sufficit eis orbis!” (One world was not enough for them!)
1. St. Francis Xavier: traveled over 100,000 kms. and personally baptized over 300,000 people becoming all things to all men – Xavier the apostle and preacher, Xavier the educationist, Xavier fighting for justice for his poor fisherfolk of Tamilnadu, Xavier seeking relief for his unfortunate Christians slaughtered by the Emperor Sada Shiva, even Xavier the match-maker (!) – till at last he breathed his last reaching for the unreachable star, China ….
2. Bl. Jose de Anchieta, Apostle of Brazil from 1553 to 1597.
Though crippled and plagued with illness, he was a man of indefatigable zeal, prodigious memory and melodious voice, and soon the jungles of the Amazon were ringing with hymns and the Catechism.
3. Fr. Thomas Stephens: In 1579 he became the first Englishman to come to India, and who stayed till his death 40 years later. Author of the first Konkani Grammar and Catechism, his Christa Purana of 10,967 stanzas is, even today, considered a gem of Marathi literature. By 1619 all 80,000 natives of the Salsette Islands were Christians…
4. Bl. Rudolph Aquaviva, companion of Matteo Ricci, was invited for a dialogue at the glorious Mughal Court of Akbar the Great from 1580 to 1583 He became a close friend of the Emperor, which sent hopes soaring high of a great Christian Empire…. He was martyred at Goa with 4 other Jesuits in 1583. When he heard the news of Acquaviva’s death, Akbar wept. Later Frs. Jeronimo Xavier (grand-nephew of Francis Xavier), Miguel Pinheiro and Bro. Benito de Goes were at Akbar’s court.
5. Matteo Ricci, cordial Italian, was the first missionary to fulfill St. Francis Xavier’s dream, when he entered China in 1583. Of brilliant mind and phenomenal memory, he was so revered for his mastery of Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography and the Chinese language, literature, culture and etiquette, that he became the first foreigner to be granted permanent residence. Though burial in the Imperial City was forbidden, when Ricci died in 1610 he was given this privilege as a man of exceptional greatness. The first telescope in China as built by Jesuits. Few know that 32 craters on the moon and other lunar formations bear the names of Jesuits, mostly of the 17th. Century, faithful witnesses of their more than eminent learning.
6. Roberto de Nobili, Italian nobleman, in India from 1605 until his death in 1656, was the first European to master Tamil, Telegu, Sanskrit and the Vedas. He became a strict Brahmin sanyasin, and the initiator of the controversial Malabar rites under the plea that an ancient civilization could not be changed overnight. He personally converted over 4000. Though stoutly defended by his Provincial, by General Claude Acquaviva, the Archbishops of Cranganore and Goa, the King of Portugal and the Chief Inquisitor, and even by 2 Popes, Paul V and Gregory XV, the rites were finally condemned by the Church in 1704, 1734 and 1744. The condemnation was a grievous blow to the Madurai Mission.
Christians, who numbered 300,000 at the time, rapidly declined to an insignificant minority, as thousands deserted this religion which was destroying all that they held sacred. It was only in 1939 that Pope Pius XII cancelled the condemnation of the Chinese and Malabar rites… But, by then irreparable damage had already been done….
7. St. John de Britto, who took the name of Arulanandaswamy, became a wandering Pandaraswamy from 1673 to 1693, until he received the crown of martyrdom.
8. Constanzo Giuseppe Beschi: in India from 1710 to 1746. His ascetical works in impeccable Tamil, grammars and dictionaries, and especially his classical Divine Comedy of 3615 stanzas entitled “Thembavani” (The Unfading Garland), have earned him the title “Father of Tamil prose”, and is compulsory study for the M.A. in Tamil.
9.
Bro Benito de Goes: An ex-soldier turned Jesuit disguised as an Armenian merchant, he traveled the land route from India to China from 1602 to 1605, and was the first to solve the puzzle that the mysterious Cathay was indeed China.
10. Bro. Ippolito Desiderii: In 1714 he became the first European to go the land route from Delhi to Lhasa. For 5 years he lived with Budhist monks in a Lama monastery, dialoguing with them, and became the foremost Tibetologist and friend of the King.
11. Fr. Johann Hanxleden: His poems on Our Lord’s life have become part of Malayalam literature On his second death centenary in 1932 the Kerala Government erected an impressive library to honour him.
12. Fr. Gaston Coeurdoux, French, was a scholar in philology and comparative linguistics.
In 1766 he was the first to draw up illustrative word lists to show the similarity of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, grammatically and phonologically.
13. Cristoph Klau, German, was the author of the Gregorian Calendar.
14. Jiri David, Czech, wrote the first book in W. Europe for the study of Russian.
15. Alexander de Rhodes, missionary to Vietnam & the Far East from 1625 to 1660, linguist of 12 languages, was the first to publish a grammar of the complicated Vietnamese language and a Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary.
16.
SS. Roch Gonzalez, John del Castillo and Alphonsus Rodrigues were the founding fathers pf the “Reductions of Paraguay” from 1610, forming communities of up to even 10,000 natives to defend themselves from marauding white-skinned raiders, with a social system ushering in security and almost self-sufficiency. Voltaire called these Reductions “a triumph of humanity”, and G. K. Chesterton “The Lost Paradise”.
17. Fr. Alfonso de Sandoval & St. Peter Claver: In 1610 they fought vs. social injustice for the human rights of Negro slaves in Cartagena. Re. P. Claver, (who used to sign his letters “slave of the slaves forever”) Pope Leo XIII who canonized him said: “After the life of Our Lord the life of no other person has touched me as profoundly as that of Peter Claver.”
18. Constant Lievens, Belgian hurricane, worked himself to death in Chhottanagpur from 1885 to 1891, bringing justice to poor peasants oppressed by zamindars.
19. Jean Leunis, Belgian, founded the Sodaity of Our Lady in Rome in 1563.
20. St. Claude de la Coombiere: In 1688 Our Lord Himself designated him to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart & be the Sp. Dir. of St. Margaret Mary.
21. Theologians and Defenders of the Faith have not been lacking. Diego Lainez, the luminary of the Council of Trent, St. Robert Bellarmine, whom Pope Benedict XIV called “the hammer of heretics”, Priest-Scientist Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Rahner, arguably the greatest Theologian of the 20th.Cen. etc., etc… Declared Pope Gregory XIII in 1581: “There is today no single instrument raised up by God vs. heretics greater than your holy Order.”
22. Saints & Martyrs: over 350 canonized Saints, Blesseds & Venerables, most of them martyrs, vgr. SS Edmund Campion & Companions, 26 of them in England, St. Andrew Bobola in Poland, SS. Jean de Brebeuf & Comp. In N. America, St. Paul Miki & Comp. in Japan. In our own days we have our missionaries of South and Central America: Frs. Rutilio Grande, Luis Espinal, Joao de Dios, and, in our own India, A. T. Thomas. Said Paul VI in 1974: “Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, in the cross-roads of ideologies, in the frontline of social conflict, there has been, and there is, confrontation between the deepest desires of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, there also there have been, and there are, JESUITS!”
23. Fr. Pedro Arrupe: What Ignatius and companions were to the XVI Cen. world of disturbing cultural transformation and religious conflict, marked by the Council of Trent, Pedro Arrupe was to the XX Cen. world of chaos and confusion and upheaval that followed Vatican Council II. With penetrating insight he guided his men to distinguish between the essentials and accidentals of religious life, and to cling firmly to the former whilst being unperturbed by the abandoning of the latter.
His religious leadership was instrumental not only in renovating and guiding the Society of Jesus to discern and to reach out to new avenues, but had a profound influence on Religious life in the whole Church. He was elected President of the Union of Religious Superiors General in 1967 and held that position for 5 consecutive terms. As a result he attended Bishop’s meetings and synods and animated different religious communities. Said the Benedictine Superior General, now Bishop in the U.S.: ”If there is one living person I have always considered a candidate for canonization, that person is FR. PEDRO ARRUPE”
This short history, though incomplete with many great names not mentioned, will hopefully help us understand why Mgr. Ronald Knox considered St. Ignatius one of the 6 greatest men who ever lived, or why Robert Rusk lists him among the 13 greatest educators of all time, or why Fulop Miller says that few men have exerted such a profound influence upon the thought and action of mankind as Ignatius. For, the truth is that Ignatius has made history and influenced the world in innumerable fields – spiritual, evangelical, educational, social, environmental etc. etc..– as few others have. That is his greatness.
He did it all through the wisdom of his words, the inspiration of his life, and, most specially, through his “Spiritual Exercises”, of which there have been in 450 years 4500 editions in 20 languages!! Ignatius ignited that fire in the hearts of millions across 460 years and more by helping them, through these Exercises, personally meet the One Who has come to cast fire upon the earth.
He himself says that the Spiritual Exercises are “the best means I can think of whereby a man may make progress and bear fruit so that he may help the progress of others”. The word “magis”, (“mas”, “more”) occurs 100 times in the Spiritual Exercises. The words “the greater glory (praise, honour, service) of God come 273 times in the Constitutions, which are but a juridical form of the same Spiritual Exercises. They demonstrate that for Ignatius there was no place for complacency or contented mediocrity. Ignatius was an enemy of the good, because he was on a quest for the best. If that fire were to die in the hearts of us all, the Society would have no reason for its existence any more. This, it seems to me, is the greatness of IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA.
Mgr. Ronald Knox was once asked to name six of the greatest men who ever lived. He astounded his audience because he, an Anglican Prelate at the time, had listed the Roman Catholic St. Ignatius of Loyola as one of them! In Robert Rusk’s History of Education, Ignatius of Loyola is listed as one of the thirteen greatest educators of all time… And R. Fulop Miller writes: ”Since the dawn of history there are few men who have followed out an idea to its bitter end with such iron logic, few men who have realized it with such an extraordinary output of energy, and exerted such a profound influence upon the thought and action of mankind as Ignatius of Loyola did.”
The greatness of Ignatius lies not only in his having personally scaled the greatest heights of sanctity, not only in his having founded a Religious Order that was radically innovative, but largely in this: that Ignatius ignited a fire that started a missionary movement of love and service, and gave an educational impetus that was unparalleled in the history of the Church. In the last 8 years of his life Ignatius opened 35 Schools and Colleges, and had started foundations for 5 more (a total of 40) when death overtook him in 1556.
Within 25 years these had grown to 144. Twenty years later the number had shot up to more than 250 spread all over the world – and these totally gratis! Small wonder that the Jesuits were called “The School Masters of Europe”. Names like Francis Xavier, Peter Claver, Jean de Brebeuf, Edmund Campion stir up all that is best and beautiful in us, and bear eloquent testimony to the quality of the fire that Ignatius ignited. An artist has captured this fiery missionary spirit in a picture showing a band of Jesuit missionaries setting sail for South America. On one of the sails is the motto “Unus non sufficit eis orbis!” (One world was not enough for them!)
1. St. Francis Xavier: traveled over 100,000 kms. and personally baptized over 300,000 people becoming all things to all men – Xavier the apostle and preacher, Xavier the educationist, Xavier fighting for justice for his poor fisherfolk of Tamilnadu, Xavier seeking relief for his unfortunate Christians slaughtered by the Emperor Sada Shiva, even Xavier the match-maker (!) – till at last he breathed his last reaching for the unreachable star, China ….
2. Bl. Jose de Anchieta, Apostle of Brazil from 1553 to 1597.
Though crippled and plagued with illness, he was a man of indefatigable zeal, prodigious memory and melodious voice, and soon the jungles of the Amazon were ringing with hymns and the Catechism.
3. Fr. Thomas Stephens: In 1579 he became the first Englishman to come to India, and who stayed till his death 40 years later. Author of the first Konkani Grammar and Catechism, his Christa Purana of 10,967 stanzas is, even today, considered a gem of Marathi literature. By 1619 all 80,000 natives of the Salsette Islands were Christians…
4. Bl. Rudolph Aquaviva, companion of Matteo Ricci, was invited for a dialogue at the glorious Mughal Court of Akbar the Great from 1580 to 1583 He became a close friend of the Emperor, which sent hopes soaring high of a great Christian Empire…. He was martyred at Goa with 4 other Jesuits in 1583. When he heard the news of Acquaviva’s death, Akbar wept. Later Frs. Jeronimo Xavier (grand-nephew of Francis Xavier), Miguel Pinheiro and Bro. Benito de Goes were at Akbar’s court.
5. Matteo Ricci, cordial Italian, was the first missionary to fulfill St. Francis Xavier’s dream, when he entered China in 1583. Of brilliant mind and phenomenal memory, he was so revered for his mastery of Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography and the Chinese language, literature, culture and etiquette, that he became the first foreigner to be granted permanent residence. Though burial in the Imperial City was forbidden, when Ricci died in 1610 he was given this privilege as a man of exceptional greatness. The first telescope in China as built by Jesuits. Few know that 32 craters on the moon and other lunar formations bear the names of Jesuits, mostly of the 17th. Century, faithful witnesses of their more than eminent learning.
6. Roberto de Nobili, Italian nobleman, in India from 1605 until his death in 1656, was the first European to master Tamil, Telegu, Sanskrit and the Vedas. He became a strict Brahmin sanyasin, and the initiator of the controversial Malabar rites under the plea that an ancient civilization could not be changed overnight. He personally converted over 4000. Though stoutly defended by his Provincial, by General Claude Acquaviva, the Archbishops of Cranganore and Goa, the King of Portugal and the Chief Inquisitor, and even by 2 Popes, Paul V and Gregory XV, the rites were finally condemned by the Church in 1704, 1734 and 1744. The condemnation was a grievous blow to the Madurai Mission.
Christians, who numbered 300,000 at the time, rapidly declined to an insignificant minority, as thousands deserted this religion which was destroying all that they held sacred. It was only in 1939 that Pope Pius XII cancelled the condemnation of the Chinese and Malabar rites… But, by then irreparable damage had already been done….
7. St. John de Britto, who took the name of Arulanandaswamy, became a wandering Pandaraswamy from 1673 to 1693, until he received the crown of martyrdom.
8. Constanzo Giuseppe Beschi: in India from 1710 to 1746. His ascetical works in impeccable Tamil, grammars and dictionaries, and especially his classical Divine Comedy of 3615 stanzas entitled “Thembavani” (The Unfading Garland), have earned him the title “Father of Tamil prose”, and is compulsory study for the M.A. in Tamil.
9.
Bro Benito de Goes: An ex-soldier turned Jesuit disguised as an Armenian merchant, he traveled the land route from India to China from 1602 to 1605, and was the first to solve the puzzle that the mysterious Cathay was indeed China.
10. Bro. Ippolito Desiderii: In 1714 he became the first European to go the land route from Delhi to Lhasa. For 5 years he lived with Budhist monks in a Lama monastery, dialoguing with them, and became the foremost Tibetologist and friend of the King.
11. Fr. Johann Hanxleden: His poems on Our Lord’s life have become part of Malayalam literature On his second death centenary in 1932 the Kerala Government erected an impressive library to honour him.
12. Fr. Gaston Coeurdoux, French, was a scholar in philology and comparative linguistics.
In 1766 he was the first to draw up illustrative word lists to show the similarity of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, grammatically and phonologically.
13. Cristoph Klau, German, was the author of the Gregorian Calendar.
14. Jiri David, Czech, wrote the first book in W. Europe for the study of Russian.
15. Alexander de Rhodes, missionary to Vietnam & the Far East from 1625 to 1660, linguist of 12 languages, was the first to publish a grammar of the complicated Vietnamese language and a Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary.
16.
SS. Roch Gonzalez, John del Castillo and Alphonsus Rodrigues were the founding fathers pf the “Reductions of Paraguay” from 1610, forming communities of up to even 10,000 natives to defend themselves from marauding white-skinned raiders, with a social system ushering in security and almost self-sufficiency. Voltaire called these Reductions “a triumph of humanity”, and G. K. Chesterton “The Lost Paradise”.
17. Fr. Alfonso de Sandoval & St. Peter Claver: In 1610 they fought vs. social injustice for the human rights of Negro slaves in Cartagena. Re. P. Claver, (who used to sign his letters “slave of the slaves forever”) Pope Leo XIII who canonized him said: “After the life of Our Lord the life of no other person has touched me as profoundly as that of Peter Claver.”
18. Constant Lievens, Belgian hurricane, worked himself to death in Chhottanagpur from 1885 to 1891, bringing justice to poor peasants oppressed by zamindars.
19. Jean Leunis, Belgian, founded the Sodaity of Our Lady in Rome in 1563.
20. St. Claude de la Coombiere: In 1688 Our Lord Himself designated him to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart & be the Sp. Dir. of St. Margaret Mary.
21. Theologians and Defenders of the Faith have not been lacking. Diego Lainez, the luminary of the Council of Trent, St. Robert Bellarmine, whom Pope Benedict XIV called “the hammer of heretics”, Priest-Scientist Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Rahner, arguably the greatest Theologian of the 20th.Cen. etc., etc… Declared Pope Gregory XIII in 1581: “There is today no single instrument raised up by God vs. heretics greater than your holy Order.”
22. Saints & Martyrs: over 350 canonized Saints, Blesseds & Venerables, most of them martyrs, vgr. SS Edmund Campion & Companions, 26 of them in England, St. Andrew Bobola in Poland, SS. Jean de Brebeuf & Comp. In N. America, St. Paul Miki & Comp. in Japan. In our own days we have our missionaries of South and Central America: Frs. Rutilio Grande, Luis Espinal, Joao de Dios, and, in our own India, A. T. Thomas. Said Paul VI in 1974: “Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, in the cross-roads of ideologies, in the frontline of social conflict, there has been, and there is, confrontation between the deepest desires of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, there also there have been, and there are, JESUITS!”
23. Fr. Pedro Arrupe: What Ignatius and companions were to the XVI Cen. world of disturbing cultural transformation and religious conflict, marked by the Council of Trent, Pedro Arrupe was to the XX Cen. world of chaos and confusion and upheaval that followed Vatican Council II. With penetrating insight he guided his men to distinguish between the essentials and accidentals of religious life, and to cling firmly to the former whilst being unperturbed by the abandoning of the latter.
His religious leadership was instrumental not only in renovating and guiding the Society of Jesus to discern and to reach out to new avenues, but had a profound influence on Religious life in the whole Church. He was elected President of the Union of Religious Superiors General in 1967 and held that position for 5 consecutive terms. As a result he attended Bishop’s meetings and synods and animated different religious communities. Said the Benedictine Superior General, now Bishop in the U.S.: ”If there is one living person I have always considered a candidate for canonization, that person is FR. PEDRO ARRUPE”
This short history, though incomplete with many great names not mentioned, will hopefully help us understand why Mgr. Ronald Knox considered St. Ignatius one of the 6 greatest men who ever lived, or why Robert Rusk lists him among the 13 greatest educators of all time, or why Fulop Miller says that few men have exerted such a profound influence upon the thought and action of mankind as Ignatius. For, the truth is that Ignatius has made history and influenced the world in innumerable fields – spiritual, evangelical, educational, social, environmental etc. etc..– as few others have. That is his greatness.
He did it all through the wisdom of his words, the inspiration of his life, and, most specially, through his “Spiritual Exercises”, of which there have been in 450 years 4500 editions in 20 languages!! Ignatius ignited that fire in the hearts of millions across 460 years and more by helping them, through these Exercises, personally meet the One Who has come to cast fire upon the earth.
He himself says that the Spiritual Exercises are “the best means I can think of whereby a man may make progress and bear fruit so that he may help the progress of others”. The word “magis”, (“mas”, “more”) occurs 100 times in the Spiritual Exercises. The words “the greater glory (praise, honour, service) of God come 273 times in the Constitutions, which are but a juridical form of the same Spiritual Exercises. They demonstrate that for Ignatius there was no place for complacency or contented mediocrity. Ignatius was an enemy of the good, because he was on a quest for the best. If that fire were to die in the hearts of us all, the Society would have no reason for its existence any more. This, it seems to me, is the greatness of IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA.
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