About ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA

College is named after St. Ignatius of Loyola, a Saint who was born at Loyola in North Spain, in 1491. He at first pursued a military career. In 1521 in the battle of Pamplona against King Francis I of France, he was struck by a canon shot that wounded one leg and broke the other. In the course of his convalescence at Loyola, he first read mundane literature, and when there was no more literature of this kind, he was given a book called “The Life of Christ” and another “The Flower of the Saints”. After reading them regularly for quite some time he developed certain sympathy with what was written in them. He began to think: “What, if I were to do what blessed Francis did or what blessed Dominic did?” Slowly he was converted to a deep love of Christ and a missionary sense. He spent a year at Manresa in prayer, penance, serving the sick at the Hospital of St.Lucy and writing in substance the “Spiritual Exercises.” He spent the next eleven years in studying Latin, Philosophy and Theology at Barcelona, Alcala, Salamanca and Paris. He gathered a few companions to go as missionaries to the Holy Land and placed them at the disposal of the Pope. Such were the beginnings of the Society or Company of Jesus. Pope Paul III approved the Society in 1540. Ignatius died in 1556.