Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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ing God, are the notes of his own experiences in a cave at Manresa where he prayed and wrestled alone. The world was still divided in the traditional way of the Middle Ages into war- riors, farmers and clerks or clerics — so Ignatius, though over thirty, had to go to Of Ignatius, the Soldier of Christ. The “Exer- cises” as Key to char- acter of Order. school. At the University of Paris he won companions whose names you may read on page 8. Due to a real love of God, these men wanted to visit the Holy Land, but the Pope had other work for them. We repeat the motive, love. because it is hard for us of little faith to remember that men can have a warm human emotion toward God — the necessary root of life for John, Paul, Augustine, Benedict, Bernard, Francis, Dominic, Ignatius. Pope Paul III commissioned them as a religious order or company. Loyola wished obedience to be the special mark of the Society, a providential fact at a time when so many were jumping the traces. Often pictured as an autocrat, the founder actually mellowed the usual religious rules, was opposed to any honors for Jesuits, gave commanders no different living 14

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with argument, missions dotting the globe, the Order in Ignatius time was much the same as it is today. Our own college is typical, containing in miniature the paradoxes of Jesuit endeavour, adventure with restraint, progress with conservatism. So, in presenting a panoramic view of the Jesuit story, we offer an essential to an understanding of Loyola College. Monsignor Peter Guilday wrote in Thought for March, 1940: ‘Probably no general history of the Jesuits will ever satisfy us. Even the recent histories of the Society by individual nations or assistancies fall short of the ideal, mainly because no uni- form method has been followed, with the result that we have such disparate works as Astrain, Duhr, Fouqueray, Hughes, Pollen and Zaleski. Undoubtedly, as in the past, many laudable efforts will be made in many languages during this Jubilee year to portray again for our generation the heritage of the last four centuries ...” Our brief effort is rather an impression from the standpoint of the American student of the Jesuits than a history. of Loyola was a Spanish officer fed on tales of chivalry with a strain of that hardheaded energetic patience essen- tial to campaigners which grew in him as the years advanced. Wounded at Pam- peluna and forced to think, he discovered values, that a life spent for the love of God would be more worthwhile than one spent in the wars or in searching self- glorification. He enlarged upon and realized these thoughts in a self-taught education in the spiritual way ‘‘under the shadow of the wings” of the Holy Spirit. His Spiritual Exercises — pocketbook size — ever since one of the standard guides for souls seek- 13

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from that of privates, directed all obedience, not to the man, but to authority and to God. The only permanent tenure of office is that of the General elected by and ultimately responsible to the General Congregation of representatives from all Prov- inces. His men are ready for rapid detail or quiet mobilization under a military obedience. But the “regular” is expected to meet with initiative and adaptability the situation he is assigned to deal with. Ignatius, sometimes an abrupt man, had nevertheless the Odyssean, the fatherlike quality, the quality we call in America “businesslike.” He saw graft, pettiness and corruption in high places, his reforms hampered, but he never raved as a Sav- onarola did — and he got results. He died without fuss, without gesture. T M rent was the battleground where the Society first met the Reformation. Laynez and Salmeron were papal theologians at that great council of the Church. Laynez was the guiding star of its deliberations. In education meanwhile, Ignatius had started the Roman and German colleges in Rome. The Roman College is now the Gregorian University and draws its teachers as well as students from all over the world. The Educational Code of the Jesuits was formulated in several editions of an instrument entitled the Ratio Studiorum (Educational System), first appearing under Father Claudius Acquaviva, a general elected young and lasting long. The main principles of this System are the developmen t of the whole man, close personal attention to the student by his instructor, contact of the minds of teacher and taught ranging from any given subject through the whole gamut of mental experience. Its outstanding feature is its emphasis on exercise (mental 15