St. Ignatius of Loyola

St. Ignatius of Loyola - Patron of Retreats and of Soldiers - July 31st

This famous founder of the Jesuits was a son of one of the most noble families of Spain. As a boy he was sent to be a page at the royal court, and there he lived on the desire to become a great soldier and win a fair lady. Later, he did, indeed, win honor for his courage in the battle of Pamplona. However, a wound from a cannon ball forced him to spend months in bed back at Loyola Castle.

Ignatius asked for some stories of knights to pass the time, but the only books on hand were stories of Our Lord and the Saints. Having nothing else to do, he read them, and his life changed from that time on. He said to himself: “These were men like me, so why can’t I do what they have done?” All the glory he had wanted before seemed worthless now, and he began to imitate the Saints in their prayers and penances and good works.

St. Ignatius had to suffer terrible temptations and humiliations before he began his great work of founding the Society of Jesus. Imagine going back to school to study Latin grammar with little boys when you are a man of thirty-three! Yet Ignatius did it because he knew he would need knowledge to help him save souls. With patience and even a laugh now and then, he took the boys’ jeers and taunts. For teaching and encouraging people to pray, he was even suspected of heresy and put in jail for a while! But that did not bother the Saint. “The whole city does not contain as many chains as I desire to wear for love of Jesus,” he said.

Ignatius was forty-three when he graduated from the University of Paris. With six other students, he made the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They also promised to work for God in whatever way the Holy Father thought best. Later they became priests and formed the religious order of the Jesuits. Before Ignatius died, there were one thousand Jesuits and they were doing much good teaching youth and preaching.

It was the Saint’s tremendous love of Jesus which made him want to keep working for the greater glory of God. He often prayed: “Give me only Your love and Your grace. With this I am rich enough, and I have no more to ask.”

The reading of the lives of Jesus and His Saints changed Ignatius’ whole life. Let us, too, read these inspiring books, so that we will find it easier to be virtuous and to put our lives to good use, as the Saints did.

St. Irenaeus - Patron of Gaul

St. Irenaeus - Patron of Gaul - June 28th

Irenaeus was a Greek who was born less than a hundred years after Our Lord died. He had the great privilege of being taught by St. Polycrap, who had been a disciple of St. John the Apostle. Irenaeus once told a friend: “I listened to St. Polycrap’s instructions very carefully, and I wrote down his actions and his words-not on paper, but on my heart.”

After he became a priest, Irenaeus was sent to the French city of Lyons. It was in this city that the Bishop, St. Pothinus, was martyred with a great many other Saints. Irenaeus missed being martyred because he was asked by his brother priests to take an important message from them to the Pope in Rome. In that letter they spoke of Irenaeus as a man full of zeal for the Faith.

When Irenaeus returned to be the Bishop of Lyons, the persecution was over. But there was another danger: a heresy called Gnosticism. The false religion attracted some people by its promise to teach them secret mysteries. Irenaeus studied all its teachings and then in five books showed how wrong they were. He wrote with politeness, because he wanted to win people for Jesus, but sometimes his words were strong, such as when he said: “As soon as a man has been won over by the Gnostics, he becomes puffed up with conceit, and self-importance, and with majestic air of a cock, he goes strutting about.” St. Irenaeus’ books were read by so many people that before too long, the whole heresy began to die out.

St. Irenaeus always remembered what he had been taught by St. Polycrap. We, too, should try to forget whatever evil impressed us, and think, instead, about the good things we have heard or read. If we think well, we will live well.