St. Ignatius High School

St. Ignatius

St. Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus was born at Loyola in the Basque region of northern Spain in 1491. He was a noble man, a knight, in the service of the King of Spain. He received a severe leg injury in a battle against the French at Pamplona in 1521. This was how God entered his life. For many months he was bedridden till his leg was healed. He spent his time reading books of chivalry, and then, for want of other books, he read the lives of the saints and the life of Jesus. He felt great consolation and joy reading the latter, and sadness and dryness whilst reading the former. He realized the emptiness of his life and resolved to follow Jesus in the most radical way. He set out on his pilgrimage in search of God. He spent one year at Menresa where he performed frightening penances and experienced a deep religious conversion. He was a changed man. He offered himself totally to God and set out for Jerusalem. He wanted to remain in the holy land "to live as Jesus lived” but he was forbidden. He returned to Spain and started recruiting people to his way of life. Soon he realized the need for studies, He started learning Latin at the age of 33 and letter went on to universities in Spain. Being harassed by the Inquisition, he went to Paris to complete his studies. He recruited six students and animated them with his vision and his burning love for God. Among them were Francis Xavier and Peter Faber who lived together in the same room in Paris.

This was the nucleus of future Society of Jesus. Individually they took their vows of poverty and chastity at Montmartre, a famous church in Paris and decided to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Because of the Turkish pirates, they were unable to fulfill their vows. They deliberated. They decided to constitute an Order, chose Ignatius as their general and offered themselves to the Pope. Their aim was “to be friends in lord and to work for the salvation of souls”. Pope Paul III approved the new order in 1540. The Pope sent the companions all over the world but Ignatius remained at Rome till death, writing the constitutions and directing and inspiring his fledgling society. He grew steadily in union and familiarity with God, gifted with extraordinary mystical graces. He died in Rome on July 31, 1556.

Ignatian spirituality is a tool that guides us to realize a meaningful journey of life. It is a set of values, attitudes and insights and not hard and fast rules on how to pray. The central theme is that God is present everywhere – in all moments of life, fields of work, in delight, in grief, relationships, culture, intellect and beauteous creation. What is more important is discerning His presence in the routine of ordinary life and adding deeper value to our experiences. And the value addition is gained when we become “men and women for others.”

St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus was born in 1491, as the last child of a large Basque family of Spain. The name of Loyola came from the ancestral castle that was the family heritage of St. Ignatius. According to the traditions of his family, Ignatius was trained to arms and to the etiquette of court life. He was badly wounded in a battle with France. As he lay convalescing at Loyola, he read the Gospel Narratives and the Lives of saints and was inspired to follow Christ by giving up all worldly ambition and trappings of power and embracing a life of poverty, sacrifice and service after the example of these saintly mentors.

He began his new life at the age of 31. He spent a year of severe penance and intense prayer in a solitary cave on the banks of the river Cardoner near the town Manresa. He recorded his experiences in the book of the Spiritual Exercises, which became the soul and centre, the rule and character of every Jesuit, who came after. Reflecting on the crisis in the Church of his time, he felt that the need of the hour was for the learned and holy priests, free of greed and ambition and ready to serve the poor and to give witness to the love of Christ for men.

To achieve this objective, he set himself in earnest to study from grammar school to college and university in the various Spanish centres of learning, and finally took his Master's Degree from the Sorbonne University, Paris. At the same time, he won over a group of brilliant and like-minded university men one of whom was St. Francis Xavier (the patron saint of India), moulded them by the Spiritual Exercises and welded them into a religious fraternity which became the Society of Jesus. The followers of St. Ignatius popularly came to be known in the course of time as Jesuits.

It was St. Francis Xavier who began the educational work of the Society of Jesus in India. Though there are about 93 schools and 17 Colleges in India run by this world-wide Religious Order, St. Ignatius High School & Inter College, Gumla was established to provide higher educational opportunities primarily to the Catholic Tribal boys and girls of Jharkhand.

The Society of Jesus proclaims that the service of faith through the promotion of Justice is the mission that must be integrated as a priority into each Jesuit work.

What do we mean by Jesuit education ? To answer that, to establish Jesuit identity, we must look to St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. We must link our work in education with the lgnatian Spirituality which inspires it.

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