Homily of Fr Charlie Cenzon SJ
Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola
31 July 2012



    “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Using bits and pieces of the life of St. Ignatius, please allow me to share some possibilities of what this means.

    It is interesting to note that it was only three years before St. Ignatius died that he finally gave in to the request of his fellow companions that he write about his life. What is more interesting is that Ignatius began his Autobiography not when he was born or as a child, but when he was a soldier defending a fortress in Pamplona in 1521. So, his Autobiography begins when he was already 30 years old.

    Most of us are familiar with the story of Iñigo’s bravery in Pamplona when he persuaded his commander and fellow soldiers to defend the fort against the French and against the odds. Tactically, Iñigo was wrong, unless his military plan involved the slaughter of his fellow soldiers. And when his legs were wounded by a cannonball, his comrades surrendered but the French were so amazed by his valor that they even took care of him before sending him back to Loyola. As a gesture of appreciation, Iñigo gave his shield to one of them, his dagger to another, and his corselet (those metal shields covering his front and back sides) to a third.

    Most of us are also familiar with the next part of the story when he had to undergo two leg operations. The second operation was actually more for vanity than for anything else. He couldn’t accept the fact that one of his legs was slightly shorter. But what made him determined to have another operation was that there was an ugly protrusion of bone below one knee. That meant he wouldn’t be able to wear those fashionable tights which were the in thing during his time. Iñigo endured all pain at a time when anesthesia was not yet invented.

    While convalescing, he was so bored he asked for some reading material. His favorites were books on chivalry and romance but they had none. Instead, his sister-in-law, Magdalena, offered him the only two books available in the castle. Actually, I find it kind of odd that there was no castle library full of books like in the movies. Anyway, Magdalena gave himthe 4 volumes of The Life of Christ written by a Carthusian monk and the Golden Legend, written by a Dominican archbishop that contained the lives of the saints. Little did Iñigo know that reading these books will change the rest of his life.

    Well, the rest of his life wasn’t exactly living happily ever after just because he had some wonderful spiritual conversion experience. On the contrary, he would experience hardships and obstacles—crosses—all through the rest of his life. In 1522, almost a year after Pamplona, he was well enough to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in imitation of the saints he read. But before departing from Spain, he spent almost a year in Manresa where he experienced both consolations and desolations. He was once so desolate that he even wanted to end his life.

    Another cross Ignatius had to bear was his health. Perhaps because of the austerities he practiced, he often got sick. One time, on the day he was to set sail from Venice to go to the Holy Land, he was so sick that others asked a physician if Iñigo could travel to Jerusalem. The physician sarcastically answered that he certainly could leave for Jerusalem…if he wants to be buried there. He vomited quite a bit during the early days of the travel but eventually got well. He finally arrived in Jerusalem on September 4, 1523.

    However, his initial plan of remaining there met a major obstacle. The Franciscans who were the custodians of the holy places asked him to leave for security reasons. The Turks were in control of the land. Some of the Franciscans there were either killed or kidnapped and had to be ransomed. This obstacle forced Iñigo to change his plans.

    By this time, he was no longer so much obsessedin outdoingwhat the other saints did or become a Carthusian monk locked away in some monasterybut he was becoming more apostolic. His focus now was how to spiritually help others. In order to do this, he needed to study. He first studied in Barcelona. He endured some humiliation when at 34, he was put in a class with teenagers because that’s what his level of education initially was. From there, he would proceed to Alcala, then Salamanca, and finally to Paris. During these years and even later on in his life, he was often imprisoned and brought to the Inquisition either because the Church authorities thought he did not have enough background to teach and spiritually guide others or that he was teaching something radical and not in accordance with Church doctrine. Because of the prohibitions imposed on him by the ecclesiastical courts in Salamanca, he decided not to continue his studies there but go to Paris instead.

    It was in Paris where he met Francis Xavier and Peter Faber who were his roommates. Others were Diego Laynez, Alfonso Salmeron, Nicolas Bobadilla, and Simão Rodrigues.Ignatius shared his Spiritual Exercises with them. On the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1534, Ignatius and his six companions pronounced private vows at a chapel in Montmartre, north of Paris. Faber was the only priest among them and he celebrated the mass. They were just a group of friends who shared the same mission and spirituality. They were not yet the Society of Jesus. They vowed poverty, chastity, and a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

    In 1535, Ignatius finally finished his masters degree in Theology. It is believed that it was during his studies in Paris that he changed his name from Iñigo to Ignatius. Having a masters degree in Theology, however, did not stop the Inquisition from questioning him especially about this Spiritual Exercises which were the fruits of his spiritual journey and which he had shared not only to his companions but to many others as well. More popularly known today as Ignatian retreats, the Spiritual Exercises were such a novelty back then, the Church authorities did not know what to make of them.

    There were two more major obstacles to Ignatius and his companions. In 1536, they were in Venice hoping to sail to the Holy Land to fulfill their vow. Unfortunately, the Venetians broke relations with the Turks who controlled the Holy Land so there were no ships sailing that year. The companions decided to try again the next year if the situation improved. And while waiting there, they dispersed in groups and busied themselves preaching, teaching, hearing confessions (most of them were ordained priests by this time), and also giving the Spiritual Exercises to others. Before they dispersed, they prayed over what they should call themselves in case people would ask. It was then that they came up with the name “Compañía de Jesús” which in Latin would be translated to “Societas Iesu” to the current English “Society of Jesus.”So, they waited and waited. By the next year, in 1537, with the worsening political situation, it was clear that they will never be able to sail to the Holy Land. So, they began executing Plan B—they will go to Rome and offer their services to the Pope. Sounds easy but this will prove to be the last major obstacle in the life of Ignatius.

    To make this long story short, the official approval of the Society of Jesus met resistance in Rome.There were the usual accusations of heretical teachings. One cardinal did not like the innovations Ignatius incorporated into the Society of Jesus such as no common chanting of the required prayers, no church organ, and no obligatory penances. Another argued that with so many religious orders who needed reform and were quarreling among themselves, forming another one did not seem to be wise. But in the end, Ignatius and his companions, and unlike his experience in Pamplona, were able to beat all odds. The Society of Jesus was officially approved through several papal documents beginning in 1540. Today, 472 years later and even after more obstacles such as the 40-year suppression of the Society starting in 1773, the works started by Ignatius and his companions continue, such as what we do here at XU, even if more hurdles will come our way.

    In our gospel, Jesus did not say that following him means living happily ever after in this life. It wasn’t in the case of St. Ignatius. It is neither the same in our case, in our lives. Taking up one’s cross daily and following Jesus involves a radical choice, like Ignatius, that quite often we do not even understand how it will unfold. Offering our time, resources, our freedom, our security, our life to something greater than us is never easy. When storms like Ondoy and Sendong come our way, we question and waver. Sometimes, we fail and fall but these do not stop us from standing up again and moving on. In our meditations on the Stations of the Cross, Jesus Himself fell three times under the weight of that cross but He stood up and kept moving on.

    In the end, carrying our cross daily is accepting what is good for us which we may not always like. But when we have carried the various crosses we encountered in our lives with grace and perseverance, when we have offered everything to God, when we have put God at the center of our lives, then, we can fully become the better persons God meant us to be. We could be another Ignatius, or Xavier, or Faber. And we know that the cross is not the ultimate end. The story of Jesus does not end on the cross in Calvary. The story of Ignatius does not end with giving up the chance to go to the Holy Land. Our story does not end with all our limitations here and now. There is the resurrection for Jesus. There is the 470+ year-old Society of Jesus for Ignatius. For us, there are those still countless of opportunities to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed wounds, to toil with little or no rest, to labor without recompense. Because it is in doing these that we carry our cross daily, follow Christ, do the will of God and attain life eternal and love eternal.


Fr Charlie Cenzon SJ is the Campus Ministries Director of Xavier University.