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The saints

St. Ignatius of Loyola

A soldier, a cannonball, and a sickbed with nothing to read but the lives of the saints.

Feast: 31 July · 1491 to 1556 · Reformation and missions · Loyola, Spain, and Rome, Italy

Read the story 1 min read
The Sanctuary of Loyola in the Basque Country: a domed baroque basilica with a broad stone stairway.

Jose Luis Filpo Cabana, 2013. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Home / The saints / St. Ignatius of Loyola

Pamplona, Spain, 20 May 1521

The French are besieging the citadel of Pamplona.1

A cannonball passes between the legs of a young Basque officer, wounding one leg and breaking the other.1

He wanted romances to pass the time while he healed. What he got were the life of Christ and the lives of the saints.

Patron of retreats2

01St. Ignatius of Loyola

The cave at Manresa

After his recovery a kind woman showed him a cave near Manresa, where he lived on alms, in prayer and penance.1

There he began the notes that grew into the little book of the Spiritual Exercises.1

02St. Ignatius of Loyola

The Society of Jesus

In Paris he gathered companions, among them Francis Xavier, and on 27 September 1540 the pope approved their Society of Jesus.1

Thrown into the common prison at Salamanca and chained by the foot to a companion, he answered with words his friends never forgot.1

“There are not so many handcuffs and chains in Salamanca, but that I desire even more for the love of God”

Ignatius in prison at Salamanca1
The Sanctuary of Loyola in the Basque Country: a domed baroque basilica with a broad stone stairway.
The Sanctuary of Loyola, built around the house where Ignatius was born and recovered from his wound. Jose Luis Filpo Cabana, 2013. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Live it this week

Look back at your day

Laid up after a cannonball, Ignatius started noticing which thoughts left him peaceful and which left him empty. Each night this week, spend five minutes replaying your day: one thing to thank God for, one moment you’d redo, one thing to ask help with tomorrow.

Notes

How we know · 2 sources for this page
  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Ignatius Loyola”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org
  2. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Ignatius of Loyola”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.