Religious groups typically celebrate the birth or death of their founder, and when significant numbers ending in zeros are reached, the celebrations generally take place with extra enthusiasm. But the Jesuits, and those who consider their foundation to be centred on St Ignatius of Loyola, celebrate this year neither a birth nor a death, but an event that began with a life-threatening war-wound.
This year, 2021, is 500 years since French troops with local Navarrese help attacked Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, held at that time by the Spanish Crown. Iñigo López de Loyola was the right-hand man of the Spanish Viceroy of Navarre who convinced the Spanish forces, against their better judgement, to try to hold out against a superior French force. In the process of the action, this rather hot-headed and determined Basque had one of his legs broken by a French cannon. And so began a great metanoia in the life of the man now known as St Ignatius Loyola.
The above excerpt is from an article by David Birchall SJ, Five Hundred Years of Conversion: 1521-2021, published in The Pastoral Review, Vol 17, Issue 4 (October/November/December2021), pg. 56-59. Click on the link below to read the article in full.
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