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| Image credit: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56364339 |
On seeing that today, July 31st, is the feast day of St Ignatius of Loyola, I decided to read a bit about him. Like many people, my first resort is Google which led me to that source of all knowledge, Encyclopaedia Britannica which told me that Ignatius was born in Spain, one of 13 children in a noble, relatively wealthy family. He became a knight until a cannonball took him within a whisker of death, smashed his legs - and his dreams of fame on the battlefield.
After nearly dying... "In February 1522 Ignatius bade farewell to his family and went to Montserrat, a place of pilgrimage in northeastern Spain. He spent three days in confessing the sins of his whole life, hung his sword and dagger near the statue of the Virgin Mary as symbols of his abandoned ambitions, and, clothed in sackcloth, spent the night of March 24 in prayer."
Now here is where it became really interesting for me. Read on with Britannica...
"The next day he went to Manresa, a town 48 km from Barcelona, to pass the decisive months of his career, from March 25, 1522, to mid-February 1523. He lived as a beggar, ate and drank sparingly, scourged himself, and for a time neither combed nor trimmed his hair and did not cut his nails. Daily he attended mass and spent seven hours in prayer, often in a cave outside Manresa."
Think about how Ignatius would be labelled today if he tried being a homeless beggar who neither combed nor trimmed his hair, and did not cut his nails. Mental health and addiction stereotypes spring to my fertile imagination. Anyway, he went on to found the organization we know today as "The Society of Jesus" or simply, "The Jesuits".
St Ignatius of Loyola was declared patron of all spiritual retreats by Pope Pius XI in 1922. He is also considered by some a patron of soldiers but, can he be more fittingly considered a patron of homeless people?