By Jill Underdahl, CSJ
One traditional way to practice prayer is meditation. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), learned to use his imagination to pray and reflect on the scriptures. His method of praying brings the scriptures to life as vividly as the stories Ignatius read as a child that made him want to be a great soldier.
Ignatius, who lived from 1491 to 1556, preferred a worldly life to becoming a priest as his family intended. He became a royal page, received an education, and lived the life of a gallant and elegant courtier in Spain. His ambitions to be a soldier often involved him in duels and fights.
At 30, a cannon ball shattered Ignatius’s right leg below the knee in a battle to save a Spanish city from the French. To recover, he returned to his home in Loyola. When a doctor discovered that his leg had been set wrong on the battlefield, Ignatius ordered him to break his leg again and set it properly.
During his long, painful recovery, Ignatius asked for adventure stories to read. He wanted to imagine the soldier’s life he longed to live but no such books were available. He had only the Life of Christ and the Lives of the Saints to read. He read them in the way he loved to read other books — with his full imagination, pretending that he was a part of the stories. His reading awakened in Ignatius a desire to begin a new life.
Once recovered, he made a pilgrimage to the mountain monastery of Montserrat. He became a pilgrim and went to Jerusalem. On his travels, Ignatius lived like a beggar, experienced depression and despair. Yet, he also had deep spiritual experiences in which he discovered the mysteries of faith and the humanity of Christ. Ignatius realized his vocation — to become a worker with and for Christ.
After years of pilgrimage and formal studies in theology and philosophy, Ignatius established the religious order, the Society of Jesus (SJ). Through his writings, the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius taught his method of prayer.