If you want to be a saint, long-suffering should be your middle name.
Ignatius
Ignatius loved his life. He was born into a noble family in northern Spain and thrived in the world of the royal court and military life. He loved chivalrous challenges — the honor, the glory, the fight.
Until it all came to an end.
At the Battle of Pamplona, his army was badly outnumbered. Most men would have walked away. Not Ignatius. He persuaded his commanding officer to stay and fight. It did not go well. A cannonball tore through both of his legs, shattering one completely.
Just like that, the life he loved was over.
But that cannonball did not just break his legs — it cracked open his heart. Lying flat on his back with nowhere to go and nothing to do, Ignatius picked up a book on the life of Christ and the saints. Something stirred in him that no battlefield ever had.
His suffering was not the end of his story. It was the beginning.
The Convalescing Soldier
Ignatius struggled during his recovery. He wanted to lose himself in tales of chivalry and romance, but the only books available were on the life of Christ and the saints. At first, it was not exactly what he had in mind.
But something happened.
The more he read, the more his heart shifted. A new desire began to replace the old ones. He wanted to do great things — not for a king, but for God. His conscience would not let him rest. He felt a burning need to do penance, to make things right, to go all the way to Jerusalem.
He spent years planning that trip to the Holy Land.
God had other plans.
The Jesuits
God knew exactly what He had in Ignatius. What started as a wounded soldier with a restless soul became something far greater. In 1540, Ignatius and a small band of devoted companions founded the Society of Jesus — the Jesuits. They became powerful instruments of Catholic renewal at one of the most turbulent moments in the history of the Church, carrying the faith to the far corners of the world.
The Calling
When the Lord calls, sometimes He needs to break your leg to get your attention.
This is exactly what happened to Saint Ignatius. He was, first and foremost, a soldier for Spain — and beyond that, a womanizer and a thoroughly worldly man. At the Battle of Pamplona against the French, his leg was so badly shattered that it had to be broken again and reset by surgeons.
But that only made things worse.
The bone protruded so much that it bothered him greatly. Men wore tights in those days, and a disfigured leg was simply not acceptable to a man like Ignatius. He ordered the doctors to break it again.
There was no anesthesia.
He did not flinch. He endured the procedure without so much as a cry. Ignatius already had a clear and intimate understanding of physical pain — and an iron will to match it. What he did not yet know was that God was already putting both to use.
St. Ignatius’ Apparitions
Throughout his spiritual life, Ignatius experienced many apparitions. Christ appeared to him repeatedly — consoling him, strengthening him, and reminding him he was not alone. This was not a man living in comfort. Ignatius depended on the charity of others, begging for alms just to survive. In Venice, he sustained himself by begging and sleeping on the steps of St. Mark’s Basilica.
St. Mark’s Square is one of the most visited places in the world. Tourists fill it every day without any idea that one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church once slept on those very steps.
The Enlightenment
On his way to pray at a small church outside of Manresa, Ignatius stopped and sat along the riverbank. What happened next is difficult to put into words — because it was not exactly a vision.
Sitting there, facing the river, his eyes of understanding simply opened.
He did not see anything extraordinary. He knew things. Spiritual things. Truths about God and faith and the interior life flooded into him with a clarity he had never experienced before. It was so overwhelming, so complete, that the entire world seemed new to him afterward.
Some moments change everything. That was one of them.
Jerusalem
Ignatius did make it to Jerusalem. Despite every obstacle thrown in his path, God gave him the desire of his heart.
In 1523, he boarded a pilgrim ship with almost nothing to his name — only hope. His intention was to stay in Jerusalem permanently, spending his days visiting the holy places where Christ had walked. But it was not to be. The provincial authorities made it clear: it was too dangerous for him to remain. Ignatius was sent away from the very place he had spent years longing to reach.
God’s plans and our plans rarely look the same.
Jesus’ Footprints
Before leaving the Holy Land, Ignatius had one final, burning desire — to return to the Mount of Olives. This is the sacred ground where our Lord ascended into heaven, leaving His very footprints behind before being taken up into the clouds. (Acts 1:9–12)
It is a place that leaves a mark on every pilgrim who visits it.
Having traveled to the Holy Land over twenty years with a lay group, the Chapel of the Ascension was never once missed. Staying at the Mount of Olives Hotel, it was often just a short walk to reach that holy ground. Nearby stands the Church of the Pater Noster, built on the place where our Lord taught His disciples the Our Father — a prayer the whole world now prays.
Ignatius stood there knowing he had to leave. He went anyway, one last time, just to be close to where Jesus had been.
That is what love does.
Ignatius’ Roommates
Imagine sharing a room with Francis Xavier and Peter Faber.
These three saints actually lived together as roommates — and all three became founding members of the Society of Jesus. Peter Faber came from Haute-Savoie, a region tucked into the French Alps in southeastern France, near Mont Blanc. Francis Xavier came from a castle in Navarre, Spain — a world away in background, but united in mission.
On August 15, 1534 — the Feast of the Assumption — Ignatius, Faber, and Xavier knelt alongside Diego Lainez, Alonso Salmeron, Nicolas Bobadilla, and Simão Rodrigues and pronounced their Jesuit vows together in Paris. Seven men. One calling. The Society of Jesus had begun.
It was not a coincidence that they chose Our Lady’s feast day to make their vows.
Education
Of all the religious orders in the Catholic Church, the Jesuits are known for having the longest and most demanding formation. Depending on the path, studies can range anywhere from eight years to as many of seventeen to twenty. The fruit of that commitment is visible everywhere.
Loyola University Chicago, Loyola University New Orleans, and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles are just a few of the institutions that bear this saint’s name — institutions built on the belief that faith and rigorous intellectual formation are not opposites, but partners.
Ignatius understood that to change the world, you had to form the minds that would lead it.
