ON July 31, Xavier University celebrates again the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Founder of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuit Order. It will be a quiet celebration unlike the Xavier Festival Days that commemorates the feast of St. Francis Xavier. The feast day of St. Ignatius has become part of the days of spiritual renewal or retreat that all the Jesuit lay co workers of Xavier University Ateneo de Cagayan undergo before the feast day. The means used for these days of renewal is “The Spiritual Exercises” of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises is a kind of a manual on spiritual direction that St. Ignatius composed to help souls find the will of God in their life. It is one of the great classics on spiritual direction. Before it came to be accepted in the Church it underwent much criticisms from the masters on the spiritual life who were contemporaries of Ignatius. It was subjected to close scrutiny by the Inquisition. Now it is probably most in use by spiritual directors in the Catholic Church. St. Francis Xavier after whom that Xavier University was renamed from its old name of Ateneo de Cagayan was one of the first who benefited from the Spiritual Exercises. St. Ignatius of Loyola first became a significant influence in my life in the 1950’s. This was when Ateneo de Cagayan then staged the life story of St. Francis Xavier. The title of the stage play was “The Whirlwind of God”. The most memorable scene of that play for me was when St. Ignatius quoted the words of Christ in the Gospel according to Luke, 9:25, namely, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul.” Ignatius quoted these words to Xavier, many times it seems, when they were classmates at the University of Paris. Ignatius was then in late thirties working for a Master’s Degree while at the same time giving spiritual direction to young college or graduate students of the University of Paris like Xavier and Peter Faber. These two and 7 others would later join Ignatius in founding the Society of Jesus or the Jesuit Order. Regarding the quote from the Gospel according to St. Luke, St. Ignatius observed that the unbridled pursuit of wealth, honor and power in people, especially among the wealthy and the powerful, led them to sin and the loss of their soul. The loss of their soul means that they have lost the spirit of love in their life and have become obsessed with the pursuit of wealth, honor and power. In The Spiritual Exercises Ignatius prescribes as remedy to this, a series of meditations on sin. These meditations are meant to help people acquire a sense of the evil of sin, particularly a sense of shame, sorrow and horror for their sins and the sins that are being committed around them. The meditations re meant to help people put order in their spiritual life. When after these meditations they have gained this grace of shame, sorrow and horror of sin and desire to reform their life and follow Christ, St. Ignatius then invited them to meditate on the Kingdom of Christ. In this meditation 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, Peter Faber and others who made this meditation followed by other meditations on the life Christ and other spiritual exercises were graced with an intimate knowledge of the person of Christ that like the apostles inspired them to leave everything to follow Christ. The following of Christ would take the form of following Ignatius in founding the Society of Jesus. They would as a result of this find themselves in different parts of the world doing what Christ invited them to do to win the world back to God by getting people to turn away from sin and to believe in the Gospel. The first Jesuits who came to the Philippines arrived in the1580’s after about a year long voyage from Spain via Mexico. They came to establish mission territories and schools. Their presence in the Philippines would leave an indelible mark in the spiritual life and the culture of the Filipino.