Saints of the Week

St Mary Magedelin

Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Feast Day: Determination

Virtue: 31 July

Ignatius, born in 1491 at the royal Castle of Loyola, Spain, became a knight in the court of King Ferdinand V. Wounded in the siege of Pamplona, he lay ill in a castle where he picked up a book of Lives of the Saints and started to read.

When he left the castle, he went to confession. For almost a year, he lived in a cave on the banks of a river. He fasted, prayed and took care of the poor and the sick.

A man of thirty-five years of age, he entered a school in Barcelona, Spain. After being ordained a priest, he founded the society of Jesus at Paris. Schools, preaching, retreats, missionary work—any work was to be their work, especially at a time when many were falling away from the Church. Many of his men became missionaries and some taught the Indians in America.

For fifteen years, Ignatius directed the work of the society. Almost blind, he died at the age of sixty-five on July 31, 1556.