Cranwell Preparatory School - Bell Tower Yearbook (Lenox, MA)

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ST. IGNATIUS OF IOYOIA

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Contents FACULTY SENIORS UNDERGRADUATES ACTIVITIES ATHLETICS FEATURES ADVERTISEMENTS P.age Nine BERCHMANS HAH

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Conversion of St. Ignatius Our story begins more than four hundred years ago in 1521 at the siege of Pamplona. Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish nobleman and cavalier in the brilliant court of Ferdinand of Aragon, re- fused to surrender the fortress to the French. The walls were destroyed in the final assault and Ignatius, leaping into the breach was struck by a cannon ball which shattered his right leg and tore the flesh from his left. He fell and with him the fortress of Pamplona. During his long convalescence, he insisted that a protruding fragment of bone be sawed off and that the injured leg be broken, reset, and stretched on an iron frame so that he might wear the tight hose then fashionable in the court of Spain. To while away these pain-wracked months he asked for books, romances and love-stories. They gave him a Life of Christ and the stories of the saints. Gradually, on his bed of torture, there came the realization, What the Saints can do, I can do, with the help of God's grace. Our picture portrays the dawn of that resolution, the beginning of a work that four cen- turies was not to end. Here was the seed that was to blossom and bear fruit, an army to do battle for Christ and His Church, shock troops to go at the call of the Vicar of Christ and spread the Word of God to the ends of the earth. The faculty of Cranwell are sons of Loyola. They march be- hind their leader, the Soldier-Saint, under the standard of Christ, their Captain, to carry on the work begun so long ago in a castle in Spain. P :ge Eleven