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 Inigo
de Loyola was born in 1491 in Azpeitia in the Basque province of
Guipuzcoa in northern Spain. He served as a soldier and found himself
at the age of 30 in May of 1521 as an officer defending the fortress.
During the battle a cannon ball struck Ignatius, wounding one leg
and breaking the other. During the long weeks of his recuperation,
he was extremely bored and asked for some romance novels to pass
the time. Luckily there were none in the castle of Loyola, but there
was a copy of the life of Christ and a book on the saints. The more
he read, the more he considered the exploits of the saints worth
imitating. This experience the beginning of his conversion, it was
also the beginning of spiritual discernment, or discernment of spirits,
which is associated with Ignatius and described in his Spiritual
Exercises
During Lent of 1539, Ignatius asked all of his companions to come
to Rome to discuss their future. After many weeks of prayer and
discussion, they decided to form a community, with the Pope's approval,
in which they would vow obedience to a superior general. Formal
approval of this new order was given by Pope Paul III the following
year on September 27, 1540. Since they had referred to themselves
as the Company of Jesus (in Latin Societatis Jesu), in English their
order became known as the Society of Jesus. Ignatius was elected
on the first ballot of the group to be superior. Ignatius died on
July 31, 1556 and he was canonized by Pope Gregory XV on March 12,
1622.
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