St. Ignatius’ spiritual patrimony

Fr. Leo Pabayo

THIS coming July 31, we will once again celebrate the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He is the founder of the Society of Jesus or Jesuit Order. He is also the patron saint of soldiers.

St. Ignatius composed a little “Manual” on the spiritual life entitled “Spiritual Exercises”. As an introduction to this “Manual”, he writes, “By the term Spiritual Exercises is meant every method of examination of conscience, of meditation, or contemplation, of vocal and mental prayer and of the other spiritual activities… Just as taking a walk, journeying on foot, and running are bodily exercises, we call Spiritual Exercises every way of preparing and disposing `the soul to rid itself of disordered attachments to created things, and after their removal, of seeking and finding the will of God in one’s life”.

The Spiritual Exercises may be done alone or with the guidance of a spiritual director.

In the 1950s Ateneo de Cagayan then staged a play entitled, “The Whirlwind of God.” The play was on the life of St. Francis Xavier. A most memorable scene for me in that play was St. Ignatius quoting a Gospel passage to Xavier in which Christ said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul.”

St. Ignatius observed in people, especially among the wealthy and the powerful, that their unbridled or disordered desire for wealth, honor and power often leads them to estrangement from God or the loss of their spiritual life. In the first part of his little book, “The Spiritual Exercises”, Ignatius prescribes as remedy for this, a series of meditations on sin. This is meant to help awaken in people their suppressed or repressed sense of shame, sorrow and horror for the sins that they have committed.

When they have gained this grace of shame, sorrow and horror for sin and desire to reform their life and follow Christ, St. Ignatius then invites them to meditate on the Kingdom of Christ. In this meditation and in the meditations on the Gospel St. Ignatius portrays Christ as “the Eternal King before Whom is assembled the whole world. To all, His summons goes forth, and to each in particular He addressed the words, ‘It is my will to conquer the whole world and all my enemies, and thus to enter into the glory of my Father.’”

Francis Xavier and many others who made this meditation and meditations of the Gospel would join St. Ignatius in responding to the call of Christ by founding Society of Jesus. They would as a result find themselves in different parts of the world doing what Christ invited them to do, namely, winning the world back to God by getting people to turn away from sin and to believe in Christ. Some of them would come to the Philippines and they would leave an indelible mark in the spiritual life and the culture of the Filipino. They came as early as the 1580’s.

In their proclamation of the good news of salvation the Jesuits would encounter many enemies. The enemies, referred to in the meditation on Christ the Eternal King, are very real people. They appear in different times and places and in different forms. They are often incarnated in people with political power.

In the 1700s, they succeeded in manipulating the Pope and most influential and powerful monarchs in Europe. They succeeded in having the Jesuits suppressed and outlawed. The Pope had the General superior of the Jesuits imprisoned. A great number of Jesuits were executed in Portugal. In the Philippines the Spanish King was less vindictive and murderous. But he had Jesuits rounded up, put under house and then shipped back to Europe, particularly to Italy.

Many years later, the new Pope and the new rulers in Europe    would see the light the Society of Jesus was restored. The Jesuits resumed their ministry and some were sent back to the Philippines in the1800s.

In the 1800s upon their return to the Philippines of they would take over the mission work of the Recoletos who were assigned to work in other “vineyards of the Lord”.

In the early1900s the American Jesuits took over from the Spanish Jesuit missionaries. In Mindanao they continued the tradition of serving the neediest by establishing new parishes in the hinterlands of Oriental and Occidental Misamis, Bukidnon Cotabato and the Zamboanga peninsula. Their work helped in the development of towns and villages in these areas.

The work of the Jesuits and their lay partners in Mindanao has always been first and foremost, to minister to the spiritual needs of the people by means of preaching, teaching of catechism and the administration of the Sacraments. Along with these are the work for justice and helping in the economic, political and cultural development of the people.

Their work for the political development in Mindanao in the early 1800s was to get the people, both the natives and the lowland settlers to form villages and to be taught livelihood skills. In Cotabato they did this by establishing what they called, “Reductions”. The most significant of the Reductions was the Tomantaka Reduction which consisted largely or mainly of slaves that the Jesuits purchased from the pirates.

When the American Jesuits took over from the Spanish Jesuits the main thrust of their mission was again to minister to the spiritual needs of the people but in doing this they gave much importance to establishing of schools. The main purpose of the schools was to enhance the faith of the faithful.

In the meditation on Christ the Eternal King, Christ is portrayed as saying that those who labor with him and suffer with him will also enter with him in the glory of the Father.

The oldest epigram of Xavier University along with “Veritas Liberabit Vos” is “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” or “For the Greater Glory of God” which in recent times has been abbreviated in the Latin word “Magis” or “more”.

Like the glory of the morning that promises new things, there is in every new day something of the truth, the goodness, the beauty, the justice, the love and compassion of God etc… that are waiting to be revealed to the world. It is the calling of every disciple of Christ the King to make this happen.