Shared Vision I
Beginnings
Introduction:
In his Autobiography St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, consistently
referred to himself as a pilgrim. In this he was deeply convinced that the Lord was leading him
to where he could do the will of God, serve the greatest needs. This calls for prayerful
discernment (Jesuit term, see Do You Speak Ignatian for definition) of God’s will. Furthermore
Ignatius would gather a group of first companions around him, “friends in the Lord”, men of
hugely diverse gifts from a wide range of cultures. The Spirit, he trusted, would reveal God’s
will through this wide variety of gifts.
Ignatius’ lived out a process of discernment over many years, which later generations have
analyzed and formulated in what we now call Ignatian Pedagogy (the Jesuit way of teaching,
see Do You Speak Ignatian for a more in depth description). It involves five aspects: Context,
Experience, Reflection, Action, and Evaluation. These form an iterative process of life-long
discernment and learning. This outline attempts to describe the video as an expression of this
pedagogy in Ignatius’ life.
(Watch for these themes in this series of videos. The Society of Jesus today, and by extension
its “apostolic works” such as Gonzaga, are asked to make these characteristics their own as
discerned for the contemporary world. For example, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, one of our recent
Fathers General, used to say “we make our paths by walking them” – pilgrims discerning our
way under God’s Spirit.)
The Person of Ignatius:
The Context: Ignatius was born in 1491, the year before Columbus sailed, a time of social
upheaval between the middle ages and the renaissance. He grew up in the family of minor
nobles, at first attached to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, and later, after the end of their
reign, to another noble family of Spain. As a noble and soldier, Ignatius was a man of great
vanity with huge ideas and inspiring dreams of personal service and glory in the courts of the
day.
The Experience: A cannon ball severely fractured his leg during a battle with the French
in Pamplona. He was admired by his enemies for his courage and they had him carried back to
Loyola to recover from his wound. This period of recuperation was extended because of a poor
setting of the bone.
His Reflections: During these long months he asked for something to read and the only
two books in the castle were the Life of Christ and the Lives of the Saints. In reading these
books he was drawn to reflect on these lives in comparison with the courtly life to which he had
aspired. When he dreamed of the courtly life it did not give him as much sense of satisfaction
as did his dreams of serving the heavenly court. He thought he could do what the saints had
done.
Action: Ignatius decided that after his leg was healed he would steal away quietly to
Jerusalem to spend the rest of his life as a pilgrim in the Holy Land. He left Loyola and headed
to the monastery of Montserrat where in an all-night vigil he laid down his sword and swore to
follow Our Lady. Leaving Montserrat he next went to the town of Manresa on the Cardoner
River where he spent a year in prayerful discernment and spiritual dialogue with the local
people.
Evaluation and More Reflection: During this year at Manresa he probed his deepest
desires to see where the Lord was leading him. He said of this time that “The Lord led me as he
would a school boy.” Through experiences of consolation and desolation – and a period of
rather strange behavior – he gradually discerned his way. He had a profound experience of
grace along the River Cardoner one day, in which he received an insight of how God is fully
present in Creation. Creation comes forth from God and returns to God. (God is in all things,
present and working there.)
The Pilgrim:
Action: The desire to become a pilgrim in the Holy Land returned and he set out to
spend the rest of his life there.
Experience and Evaluation: The Franciscans, who were in charge of Catholic doings in
the Holy Land, sent him packing after a short time because his ministry to the Muslims was a
threat to what they were doing there. He had to return to Spain. He had come to realize that
he needed more education if he was to be successful in his vocation of service.
More Reflection and Action: Running afoul of the Inquisition in Spain, he headed north
to pursue his education the University of Paris, where he became deeply imbued with the
humanism of the times and learned the Parisian method of integrated studies. This method
would later form the basis of the Ratio Studiorum.
Experience: At the UofP he met a number of men to whom he gave the Spiritual
Exercises. Some seven of these would become his first companions in founding the Society.
Deliberation: These companions took simple religious vows together at a chapel on
Mont Martre and then, deliberating about their future, decided to go to Venice where they
would catch the next annual ship to the Holy Land. The also decided that if they were not able
to book passage within a year they would journey to Rome and offer their services to the Pope.
Their deliberations were motivated by the desire to serve the greatest need, seek the greatest
possibility of service (The Magis).
Action: While in Venice they ministered to the people on the streets, something very
dear to Ignatius, who, despite his and their Parisian degrees, always wanted his men to be in
contact with the poor and needy.
Rome:
Experience, Reflection, Evaluation, and Action: No boat from Venice to the Holy Land
that year because of tensions with the Turks on the Mediterranean. They decided to follow
their earlier plan and set off to Rome.
Profound Experience: At a small chapel at La Storta just north of Rome, Ignatius, who
had been praying to God to place him with his Son, received a vision of God the Father and
Christ carrying his Cross. God said to Ignatius, “I do will it,” and placed Ignatius with Jesus and
his cross. God also said to Ignatius, “I will be propitious to you in Rome.” This greatly
confirmed the companions in their discerned decision to offer their services to the Pope.
Action: The early companions arrived in a Rome that was a mess. It was a tough winter
and there were lots of poor people on the streets, all needing food and shelter. Ignatius got
food from the well to do and distributed it among the poor; he started a home for prostitutes
to get them off the street; and they carried on theological and spiritual conversations with the
people they met.
Experience: The Pope had heard about these Paris theologians and invited them to
discuss theological questions with him over breakfast. This they did to his great edification and
pleasure.
Action: Ignatius appealed to the Pope to confirm this group of companions as a religious
order, which the Pope did on Sept. 27, 1540. To his chagrin, Ignatius was elected the first Fr.
General of the Jesuits, and spent the rest of his life in Rome, continuing to serve the people on
the streets, but also involved in governance of the rapidly growing Society and in writing the
Constitutions of the Society.
Some Points for Reflection:
1. After the experience on the Cardoner River, Ignatius developed a spirituality that is very
“world-affirming,” seeing the presence of God in all things and in all variety of person.
2. Ignatius and his companions develop an appreciation for cultures and a desire to bring
the message of the gospel to them.
3. There is a variety of human gifts and talents; and Spirit works with each individual in
ways that are appropriate to that person.
4. The context of discernment in the life of Ignatius changed frequently and called for
renewed reflection to guide action. How would you name your own context as it now
stands? How has it changed from when you first arrived here? What does the changed
context call forth from you in terms of reflection and possible courses of action?
5. The fruits of Ignatius’ discernment often led him to act outside the comfortable
boundaries of religious and social expectation in fidelity to his sense of call. Have the
changing contexts of your experience led you to have to enter into such an
uncomfortable place “outside the boundaries” out of fidelity to fundamental values in
your own life? Looking back on that experience, if you were to have used an Ignatian
approach to discernment—one which is based on freedom from “disordered
attachments” and follows the process of experience, reflection, action, evaluation
outlined in the video—how might it have affected your response to the uncomfortable
place? How might you have wanted it to affect your response?
6. Ignatian spirituality looks for the presence of God at work in all things (even people we
might not like!). Consider any recent interaction (with a colleague, student, significant
other, etc.) which went less-than-satisfactorily. If you were to have approached that
experience from the conviction that God is at work in the other person involved (as also
in yourself), how might it have affected your mode of engagement with the other
person?