On this feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in which we also are commemorating the 500th anniversary of his conversion, it is a perfect time for us to turn and reflect upon the life of this saint, especially in how he modeled walking the path of holiness.
For the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola is a profoundly powerful example of how humility can serve as the gateway for living out a life of sanctity.
Ignatius, born in 1491, pursued all the pursuits that were commiserate with a young man of his times. He pursued status as a page, and then later, as a soldier for the Viceroy of Navarre. Both his leadership qualities and diplomatic skills resulted in his appointment as an officer, and he was given charge of the defense of the town of Pamplona. It was culmination of what Ignatius had worked for his entire life—power, prestige and position.
But all that changed when he was struck by a cannonball during the siege. His leg shattered, Ignatius’ dreams of great glory were shattered as well and he returned to his childhood home of Loyola to recuperate.
It was then that Ignatius experienced a conversion of heart and mind. The result was that he redirected his previous passions for acquiring worldly prestige, power and possessions to the goal of becoming an exemplary disciple of Christ.
His enthusiasm and desire for excellence led him to set out on pilgrimage to Montserrat where he set aside his worldly possessions before Our Lady of Montserrat and vowed to live as a pauper in a cave in the nearby town of Manresa.
Here, while he was practicing extreme forms of mortification and fasting (practices which severely injured his health and caused him to suffer stomach issues until his death), Ignatius was graced with the spiritual insights that eventually became what is now known as The Spiritual Exercises.
The Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices designed to help people deepen their relationship with God. During the 30-day journey, a person is encouraged to encounter God’ personal, intimate, and redemptive love and respond to that love through a series of choices. These choices eventually emerge: conversion from personal sin; freely embracing discipleship; rejecting the way of evil—specifically, greed, honors and pride; deciding to live a life of service with and for Christ; and most significantly, incorporating a self-emptying spiritual poverty rooted in humility.
The Exercises are actually a microcosm of Ignatius’ own spiritual journey to that point, but they also embody the remainder of what Ignatius’ life was to become. After he departed Manresa, the events of his life echoed his own deepening understanding of the path of humility that he was to trod.
This symbiotic relationship between exterior and interior life played itself out for the next thirty years as Ignatius experienced both intense cycles of success, and corresponding lessons in humility. And as he grew in his capacity for discipleship, he also descended deeper and deeper into the self-emptying spiritual poverty and humility that was necessary for his own sanctification.
So how was it that a man who had spent much of his life seeking honors and prestige and possessions, could later become a man who lived in poverty, obedience and would abhor honors—even to ones which were earned or well suited?
Humility.
Humility is the virtue by which we know and acknowledge ourselves as we truly are, and enables us accept the truth about ourselves.
The depth of Ignatius’ interior life did not permit him any delusions about who he was. He knew he was an abject sinner. Despite that knowledge though, he ever rejoiced in the reality of being a beloved and precious son of the Heavenly Father. This lived dichotomy was only possible because of his extraordinary humility.
Humility is the hallmark of every saint, and it is the gateway to the path of sanctity.
Why? Because humility strips us of any delusions with which pride may attempt to delude us, all while simultaneously enabling us to eventually embrace what might be the most abject of conditions or treatment that we encounter in our day-to-day lives.
Ignatius modeled humility for each of us in his own life, and through the Spiritual Exercises, he has helped to cultivate humility in the souls of countless others across the centuries as they seek to follow in his footsteps on the path of humility while striving towards holiness.
St Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!
Christina Semmens is a Roman Catholic author, speaker, and coach and host of the Say Yes to Holiness podcast. She currently lives in Fort Payne, Alabama where she strives to live out a life of authentic discipleship in the pursuit of holiness while empowering, teaching and accompanying others in striving to do the same.
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