The Daily Prayer
FRIDAY, July 31, 2020
Ignatius of Loyola (1491—1556)
Ignatius was born to a noble Spanish family. As a young man, he joined the military, but a war injury ended his military career. While recuperating, Ignatius became bored and asked for novels about knights and battles. But all that could be found in the castle where he stayed were books on the life of Christ and the saints of the church. Legend has it that Ignatius read these stories in a competitive manner, imagining how he could beat the various saints at practicing the spiritual disciplines. He soon found that his thoughts on the saints left him with more peaceful and satisfying feelings than his daydreams about the noble life he had known before his injury. After his illness, Ignatius began practicing his competitive notions of rivaling the saints and wrote about his experiences of Christian disciplines. His scribblings became the spiritual classic The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, used by Christians for centuries in the practice of discernment. He eventually founded the Society of Jesus, an order still known widely for a commitment to foreign missions and religious education.
These are the words of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits: “Consider that the blessed life we so long for consists in an intimate and true love of God, our Creator, and Lord, which binds and obliges us all to a sincere love.”
Jesus, it is enough to tell others of your works of mercy, of your resurrection, of your imminent return. It is enough to praise you in the sanctuary, to kneel before you, to wait in silence for you. Lord, it is enough to be named as one of your children, to be bound in eternal love and freedom to give up our lives for you. Amen.
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