Ignatius Lecture

On Wednesday February 21st I attended the lecture titled Staking Out the City / St. Ignatius and Jesuit Strategy by Father Thomas Lucas. Father Lucas currently works at San Francisco University and is a world-renowned architect. He graduated from Berkeley and some of his most famous restorations have been the Ignatius rooms in Rome and some areas actually in the Vatican. He was a very interesting man and the lecture was quite entertaining as well as informative, especially how Loyola College was introduced to the city.
Father Lucas started the lecture with a brief explanation of where the Jesuit institution came from. In 1492, in northern Spain, Saint Loyola was born. As he grew older he was faced with a choice: what was he going to do for the rest of his life? He had three ultimate choices. He could join the army, join the church, or become part of the court. Although I expected Father Lucas to say, “the church” he first chose the army. During one battle against France he lost his leg and had a near death experience. After which Ignatius realized he needed to reflect and re-adjust his life. He left his rich life and sword at home and he went to spend 11 months in the holy land. This long period of time eventually led to Ignatius’ enlightenment. He also experienced a nine-day rapture.
Ignatius however was far from his eventual goal. Many religious officials blew him off and considered him crazy. At thirty-one years of age Ignatius returned to elementary school to learn Latin. Latin, at the time, can be compared to the necessary computer skills for our day and age. After his schooling he went to Paris, which had approximately 300,000 people living in it. For five years he lived in Paris and formed a group who eventually became the Jesuits that we identify with today.
The group’s first stop was Jerusalem. All seven of the men then continued to Rome to put themselves to the service of the Pope. They were the first group to make Rome their headquarters. At this time Rome was not the glorious idea we have of it today. Most of the city was over run by wolves and prostitutes. In fact their original chapel was only one block away from the Jewish Ghetto’s. The location of this group of men continually changed and eventually went to central parts of the city.
Education was also not the primary focus of the Jesuits. It eventually evolved to it though. They opened schools all over the world, for example Japan and Lithuania. They did this because they first wanted to reach out to the urban population. They wanted to help everyone needy and create a universal goal in many regards. Wheat surprised me, however, was that the Jesuits were also social climbers. Ignatius was not shy about his wanting to make friends with the wealthy.
The location of the Jesuit intuitions was also very important to the founders. The target locations were first and foremost great nations, important cities, and universities that were well known. Ignatius wrote over 6,000 letters in his lifetime and only about 5% of them were religious. This also really surprised me because when one thinks of a Saint they assume they were next to perfection. It occurred to me that perfection is an impossible goal to expect out of anyone – Saint or not. We also learned that Loyola College in fact has had numerous location changes
Walt Whitman's poems have a similar grandeur found in Ignatius’s life as well. In One’s-Self I Sing the speaker of the poem is confused with his place in the world. There appears to be a male and female counterpoint that is struggling to understand how to make everything work. Ignatius had this quality in him as well because her specifically chose a different life than the one seemingly destined for him. He had two lives in one, and it’s interesting that such a tragic accident was the birth of his new self. In One’s-Self I Sing one can almost picture the speaker trying to figure out what to do or where to put this new self in society. In I sing the Body of Electric Whitman appears to be praising his lovers every literal details. Ignatius also had this excitement for life and a love for detail, although I don’t believe he wrote many poems about bodies.
Overall I think the lecture was very informative. I have a better understanding of Saint Ignatius and what it means to go to Loyola. I feel like I better understand what I should be portraying to the world in terms of the Jesuit education. One of the main reasons I chose to come to this institution because I felt the need to achieve something more with my life. Jesuit education is about the wellness of every part of the body mind and soul. As I talk to my friends at other schools they seem to be missing the greater meaning in life. Although I do not feel as though I totally know my purpose in this world, it helps to know where I am coming from. The poems and the lecture seen are not exactly similar, and yet they are all about people expressing what they love.