Wounded in battle in 1521, the Spanish (Basque) nobleman, Ignatius of Loyola, experienced during his recuperation a deep religious conversion and a desire "to help others." Some ten years later at the University of Paris he gathered nine fellow students and together they founded the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. These companions elected Ignatius the superior of the new order, which rapidly expanded to about a thousand members by the time Ignatius died in 1556. His great masterpiece, the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, a program for a religious retreat, which encapsulated his own experience, continues to be popular today. He was canonized in 1622 along with his friend, Francis Xavier, the great missionary, who was a member of the original group.
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Text written by John O'Malley, S.J.
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