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Saint Ignatius of Loyola, also known as '''Ignacio (Íñigo) López de Loyola''' ( December 24 , 1491 – July 31 1556 ), was the principal founder and first Superior General of the Society Of Jesus , a Religious Order of the Catholic Church professing direct service to the Pope in terms of mission. Members of the order are called Jesuits. He is famous as the compiler of the '' Spiritual Exercises '', and he is remembered as a gifted spiritual director. He was very active in fighting the Protestant Reformation and promoting the subsequent Counter-Reformation . He was Beatified and then Canonized to receive the title of Saint on March 12 , 1622 . His Feast Day is July 31 , celebrated annually. He is the Patron Saint of Guipúzcoa as well as of the Society of Jesus. EARLY LIFE Íñigo was born at the castle of Loyola , near Azpeitia , 16 miles southwest of San Sebastián in the Basque Province of Guipúzcoa, Spain . The youngest of 13 children, Ignatius was only seven years old when his mother died. In 1506 , Íñigo became a Page in the service of a relative, Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, treasurer (''contador mayor'') of the kingdom of Castile . In 1517, Íñigo took service in the army. Severely wounded in the legs by a cannonball at the Battle Of Pamplona ( May 20 , 1521 ), he spent months as a disabled person in his father's castle. RELIGIOUS ASPIRATION During this period of recuperation he came to read a number of religious texts on the life of Jesus and the Saint s. He became fired with an ambition to lead a life of self-denying labor and to emulate the heroic deeds of Francis Of Assisi and other great monastic leaders. He resolved to devote himself to the conversion of non-Christians in the Holy Land . He later changed his name from Íñigo to Ignacio (Ignatius) in honor of St. Ignatius Of Antioch . On recovering he visited the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat ( March 25 , 1522 ), where he hung his military accouterments before an image of The Virgin . He then went and spent several months in a cave near the town of Manresa , Catalonia where he practiced the most rigorous Asceticism . He is said to have had visions. The Virgin became the object of his chivalrous Devotion . Military imagery played a prominent part in his religious contemplations. During this time he drafted his ''Ejercicios espirituales'' ( Spiritual Exercises ), which describes a series of Meditation s to be undertaken by various people who came to him for spiritual direction, including in due time the early Jesuits. The ''Spiritual Exercises'' was to exert a strong influence in changing the methods of teaching in the Church; "the mill into which all Jesuits are cast; they emerge with characters and talents diverse; but the imprint remains ineffaceable" (Cretineau-Joly). Ignatius was arrested twice after being accused of teaching the ways of God without the proper education. Both of these arrests happened during the Spanish Inquisition . STUDIES IN PARIS In 1528 he entered the University Of Paris where he remained over seven years, extending his literary and theological education and disturbing the students by attempting to interest them in the Spiritual Exercises . By 1534 he had six key companions - Peter Faber (French), Francis Xavier (from Navarra, Spain), Alfonso Salmeron , Jacob Laines , and Nicholas Bobadilla (Spaniard), and Simon Rodrigues (a Portuguese). FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS On August 15 , 1534 , he and the other six in St. Mary's Church, Montmartre founded the Society of Jesus - "to enter upon hospital and missionary work in Jerusalem , or to go without questioning wherever the pope might direct". In 1537 they travelled to Italy to seek papal approval for their order. Pope Paul III gave them a commendation, and permitted them to be ordained priests. They were ordained at Venice by the bishop of Arbe ( June 24 ). They devoted themselves to preaching and charitable work in Italy, the renewed war between the emperor, Venice, the pope and the Ottoman Empire rendered any journey to Jerusalem inadvisable. With Faber and Lainez, Ignatius made his way to Rome in October, 1538 , to have the pope approve the constitution of the new order. A congregation of cardinals reported favorably upon the constitution presented, and Paul III confirmed the order through the bull '' Regimini Militantis '' ( September 27 , 1540 ), but limited the number of its members to sixty. This limitation was removed through the bull ''Injunctum nobis'' ( March 14 , 1543 ). FATHER GENERAL OF THE JESUITS Ignatius was chosen as the first Superior General of his religious order, invested with the title of Spiritual Exercises was finally printed, and he was briefly brought before the Roman Inquisition , but was released. Ignatius wrote the Jesuit Constitutions, adopted in . During 1553 - 1555 Ignatius dictated his life's story to his secretary, Father Gonçalves Da Câmara . This autobiography is a valuable key for the understanding of his ''Spiritual Exercises''. It was kept in the archives for about 150 years, until the Bollandist s published the text in Acta Sanctorum . A critical edition exists in Vol. I ( 1943 ) of the ''Fontes Narrativi'' of the series ''Monumenta Historica Societatatis Iesu''. He died in Rome on July 31 , 1556 . A neighbourhood in Bilbao and the corresponding Metro Bilbao station ''San Inazio'' are named after him. BEATIFICATION AND CANONIZATION He was Beatified by Paul V on 27 July, 1609 , and Canonized by Gregory XV on 22 May, 1622 . PORTRAYALS St Ignatius is a principal character of the opera '' Four Saints In Three Acts '' by composer Virgil Thomson and librettist Gertrude Stein . SEE ALSO REFERENCES AND EXTERNAL LINKS
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