Like today’s saint I’m aware of how reading the Bible or a spiritual book has the opposite effect to reading the daily paper. Both are interesting but the first almost always lifts me up and the second often depresses me. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) has a lot of teaching about how best to read scripture and over my lifetime I’ve benefited from him and his followers, the Jesuits who run a brilliant retreat Centre in Wales dedicated to St Beuno. My picture is of their Woodland Chapel.
Today the church commemorates Saint Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit Order, who lived in the sixteenth century.
The turning-point in his life came in 1521. After a dissipated youth Ignatius served as a soldier and got hit by a cannon ball which broke his right shin. He became a prisoner of war and a very sick one at that.
In order to keep him sane during the long weary hours of convalescence, he asked for some light reading. There were none around but they brought him the lives of Christ and of the saints.
In what followers of Ignatius now call ‘discernment of spirits’ he noted how buoyed up he was after reading the lives of holy people compared with the depressing after effects of other books he’d read in the past.
The after-effect of reading worldly romances was to make him dry and dissatisfied whilst the after effects of reading about the saints left him joyful. Worldly thoughts began to lose their hold on Ignatius, while heavenly ones grew clearer.
He prayed and was given a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus. This so impacted him he gained a loathing of his past sins, and a deep love for the Lord. This not only filled him but infected many others so that we know Ignatius Loyola as founder of the Christian brotherhood called Jesuits.
In his single mindedness Ignatius provides, coincidentally, an illustration of the Gospel passage set for today which are always chosen from the weekday or ferial cycle except for greater saints.
Let me read it again and leave us to ponder for a minute or two the word of God, today’s Saint and their relevance to us this afternoon/evening.
‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.’ Matthew 13:44-46
