St Ignatius Loyola example essay topic

St. Ignatius Loyola I am St. Ignatius Loyola the man who found the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. My original name is Inigo de Loyola and I was born in 1491 in a place called Azpeitia in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa in northern Spain. I was the youngest of thirteen children. At the age of sixteen I became a servant for Juan Velazquez, the treasurer of the kingdom of Castile.

I was considered a member of the Velazquez family so when ever Juan went to court I would go with him. In doing this I began to like court and any thing to deal with court, but I gained the biggest interest in the woman. I also began to like gambling; I liked it so much I became addicted to it. I was also very complet ive and was open to competing in anything-even sword fighting.

For the next decade or so I didn't really do much my life didn't progress at all till 1521 when I turned 30 and I was defending the fortress of the town of Pamplona against the French. We were starting to lose the battle we were out numbered and my head commander wanted to throw in the towel but I said "no" and convinced him to stay in the battle and fight. I wanted to fight for the honor of Spain, and not for the win. I was in the thick of the battle and "Wham" I got blasted by cannon ball breaking my leg and wounding the other. Because I was such a courageous leader the French soldiers carried me back to my home rather that prison so I could get better. They set my leg after it broke but it was not healing right so the doctors said they had to break it again with out any use of painkillers.

I was told to prepare for my death but instead one day my health took a turn for the better. My leg did heal good but it was shorter than the other one so for the rest of my life I had to walk with a limp. During the many, many, many weeks of recuperation I thought I was going to lose my mind out of boredom. So I asked for some romance novels to help my pass the time. There were no romance novels of any sort in the castle of Loyola; with my luck I did find a book called the Life of Christ. I also found a Book of Saints I also read.

With the TV or video games a few centuries away I had to find something to do so I began to read Life of Christ and the Book of Saints. The more I read these books the more they drew me in. I also realized that they made me feel complete at the end of the day. This is what some call the beginning of my conversion. This is what also inspirited me to write Spiritual Exercises. One day I decided to return to school I was 33 years old and through becoming very interested in Jesus and saints I wanted to become a priest.

But I did not speak Latin so I had to go all the way back to grade school to learn Latin. After 8 semesters of taking Latin I finally learned it and went to the University of Alcala were I would always get in trouble for preaching the gospels and telling people how to pray. One time I was preaching and I was thrown in jail for 42 Days because I was preaching and I was not ordained. Because I could not stay out of trouble in Alcala I moved to Salamanca but yet again I was put in jail. This time I decided to go to Paris to preach maybe in a bigger place I will not be noticed so easily.

Here I went to the UP (University of Paris) were I enrolled in Latin, philosophy and theology classes. When in Paris I roomed with to people who later became friends Francis Xavier and Peter Faber. Here I used the Spiritual Exercises I wrote a few years earlier on a few fellow students. Later on seven of us decided to take God more seriously and take the vows of chastity and poverty much like brothers. While us seven (The Perfect Number) waited to make a journey to the Holy Land I was ordained a priest. But did not lead a mass for another year or so because I wanted to give my first mass in Jerusalem on the same land in which Jesus walked.

In a few months two of my companions decided to go to Rome to see the Pope when the second of my mystical experiences happened. The first was the wholesome feeling that I got after I read the Life of Christ. The mystical experience happened in a small chapel a few miles outside of Rome. Here God the Father told me, "I will be favorable to you in Rome" and that he would place me with His Son. When I met the pope he was pleased to let us preach and teach about scripture and theology. Here is where I had my first mass at the Church of St. Mary Major in the Chapel of the Manger.

Now with the permission from the Pope I made a new community. Since we call our selves the Company of Jesus later became know as the Society of Jesus. We had a vote on who are leader should be and the voted me the leader. I could not believe this so I told them to pray about it and vote again in two days. So we voted and yet again I won. So now I am the Superior General and it was not in the original plan but I decided to open some schools for the Jesuits.

We built many, many school mainly made for young children. But later made ten colleges for the older students. Our schools teach children about our religion, how to preach, and the other normal school subjects. I had a history of stomach problems that progressively got worse. On July 30th of 1556 I asked my secretary to get the Pope for a blessing. Polanco said he had work to do because my physician said I would get better so he felt it was no need to hurry until that night I took a turn for the worse and died the next morning.

I was declare a beatified on July 27, 1609 and canonized by Pope Gregory XV on March 12, 1622 together with St. Francis Xavier. My feast day in celebrated by the universal Church and the Jesuits on July 31, the day I died. (The Life of St. Ignatius Loyola).