Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Saint Ignatius was on his way to military fame and fortune when an injury required a period of convalescence, during which he studied the life of Christ and the lives of the saints. This was the beginning of his slow and painful conversion. During this year of conversion, Ignatius began to write material that later became his greatest work, the Spiritual Exercises.

In 1534, at the age of 43, he and six others, including Saint Francis Xavier, vowed to live in poverty and chastity and to go to the Holy Land. If this became impossible, they vowed to offer themselves to the apostolic service of the pope. The latter became the only choice, and four years later Ignatius made the association permanent. Pope Paul III approved the new Society of Jesus, and Ignatius was elected to serve as the first general. A true mystic, Ignatius centered his spiritual life on the essential foundations of Christianity—the Trinity, Christ, the Eucharist.