On the Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, Friday 31 July, Farm Street Church was full to capacity as parishioners, friends and visitors joined Jesuits and alumni of Jesuit schools and universities for a Solemn Mass marking the founder of the Society of Jesus.

The Mass was led by His Excellency Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain. He was joined by the Jesuit Provincial, Fr Peter Gallagher SJ, Fr Michael Holman SJ, London Jesuit Superior, and Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, parish priest of Farm Street. The Farm Street Choir provided the music.

In his homily, the Nuncio spoke of Ignatius as "a mystic and a warrior," a man changed forever by a battlefield wound that turned one search for glory into another: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul?" From then on he lived only for what became the Jesuit motto, "the greater glory of God." The Nuncio closed with words from Pope Leo XIV, who recently described Ignatius and his companions as men who went to "the margins," unafraid of "uncertainty or difficulty."

Ahead of the Mass, Archbishop Maury Buendía shared about his own Jesuit education and what draws him to St Ignatius.

Between the ages of six and twelve, he was a boarder at the Colegio de San Estanislao de Kotska in Palo, Málaga — a school where his uncle, Fr Ignacio Maury, now 101, was rector. Looking back on that formation, received during the years of the Second Vatican Council, he said three things had stayed with him throughout his life: a love for the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary, a habit of internal and external discipline, and the confidence to face life's challenges "without fear, with serenity and fighting spirit", acting, as he put it, "as if it depended on me, even if it depends on God."

Asked what draws him personally to St Ignatius, the Nuncio described him as "a knight of his time who put himself at the service of Our Lord and his Church," whose generosity and dedication to a cause beyond himself remain an example centuries on. He added that he still turns to Ignatian discernment when facing important decisions and uses the Ignatian method of Gospel contemplation in his own daily prayer.

The Mass formed part of wider celebrations taking place across the Province to mark the feast day and comes as Jesuits in Britain continues to share short reflections on Ignatius's life and Spirituality through its YouTube channel.

The Nuncio's homily is included in full below.

The Mass was livestreamed and can be watched again in full here.

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