Pope Francis wrote a letter on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the conversion of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in Spain, highlighting the integrity and coherence of the holy founder of the Society of Jesus.
The letter was sent to Cardinal Juan José Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona (Spain) and President of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. He participated along with other authorities in this celebration that took place on 14 November.
Below is the full letter from Pope Francis:
Dear brother:
On November 14, a singular event will be held in Barcelona, ​​the 500th anniversary of the arrival of a poor soldier in a remote place in the geography of Spain, when he was on his way to the Holy Land.
Our protagonist, after having served the king and his convictions to the point of shedding his blood, was wounded in body and spirit, had stripped himself of everything and had the purpose of following Christ in poverty and humility.
At that moment, he did not care about staying in shelters for the poor or having to retire in a cave to pray, even less that this meant being “esteemed vain and crazy” (E.E. 167). And yet -paradoxes of fate-, five centuries later the civil and religious authorities of that region, together with the Superior General of the religious institute he founded, the Society of Jesus, meet institutionally to celebrate this event.
I also wish to join this act, for which I have wanted you to represent me, begging you to convey my greetings to all the authorities present, both civil and ecclesiastical, and in them to the faithful People of God, who remember Saint Ignatius of Loyola with devotion and affection, and to the men of good will who respect him for being a man of integrity and consistent in his convictions. In the same way, to the members of the Society of Jesus, who, like me, revere him as a founder.
It is significant at this time to think that, to get him there, God used a war and a plague. The war that took him out of the siege of Pamplona and was the trigger for his conversion, and the plague that prevented him from reaching Barcelona and kept him in the Manresa cave.
It is a great lesson for us, since wars and pestilences are not lacking for us to become converted. We can, therefore, take them as an opportunity to reverse the course followed so far and invest in what truly matters, whatever the area in which we operate.
And it is that, through crises, God tells us that we are not the lords of History, with capital letters, not even of our own stories, and even though we are free to correspond or not to the calls of his grace, it is always his design of love that runs the world.
In that circumstance, Ignacio was docile to that call, but the most important thing is that he did not keep this grace to himself, but from the beginning he considered it as a gift for others, as a path, a method that could help other people. people to meet God, to open their hearts and let themselves be challenged by Him.
Since then his spiritual exercises, like other itineraries of perfection, such as the twelve degrees of humility of Saint Benedict, the abodes of Saint Teresa, or more simply those that propose the beatitudes or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are presented to us as that Jacob’s ladder that from earth takes us to heaven, and that Jesus promises to those who sincerely seek him.
May the Lord bless you, dear brother, may he bless the People who make pilgrimages in those lands, and may the Holy Virgin take care of them. And please don’t forget to pray for me.