St. Ignatius of Loyola: From Soldier to Saint
St. Ignatius of Loyola’s life's story is one of dramatic change. It shows how discerning the will of God and responding generously to His grace can lead to holiness. As a young man, Ignatius was focused on worldly honor, glory, feats of arms, womanizing, and gambling. This relentless drive led him to an ill-fated military defense of Pamplona, where God used a life-altering injury to teach him to recognize God’s voice in the movements of his heart. This decisive moment gave birth to his teaching on discernment, which continues to illuminate the world today.
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Born in 1491 to a noble Basque family, Ignatius grew up well acquainted with the demands of nobility. He was ambitious, restless for adventure, and eager for renown. While he never doubted his Catholic faith, he was not attentive to it in his youth, and his life was far from consistent with its practice.
Examples of this abound in his early life. At the age of 24 in his hometown of Azpeitia, he committed what is known only as an “enormous crime” with one of his brothers, which, when discovered, forced him to flee the city. For three consecutive years he petitioned the king of Spain to allow him to carry a sword in public due to fear for his own safety, because a man who was “utterly determined to take his life” was pursuing him. Tensions remained high in Pamplona, where another account describes political unrest that required Ignatius to be restrained lest he draw his sword and kill or be killed. This was his life: filled with dreams of gallantry and the pursuit of worldly glory.
Then came the pivotal moment: Ignatius inspired a hopeless defense of the city of Pamplona against French troops, standing high atop a city wall where a cannonball struck him, shattering one leg and wounding the other. He fell, and the city surrendered to the French.
Ignatius's autobiography tells us that the French were so impressed by his courage that they brought him back to his hometown of Azpeitia. Due to the severity of the injury and the difficulty of travel, his leg healed poorly and had to be rebroken and reset in a painful surgery which he barely survived.
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After a time of recovery, he noticed that the injury had left a protrusion of bone in his leg. Concerned about his appearance, he insisted on another surgery to remove the excess bone. After this third operation Ignatius spent his days in the upper story of the Loyola home on his convalescent bed. Gradually, he regained health in every way except for his leg, which remained shorter than the other and left him with a limp for the rest of his life.
​​​​​​​​​Confined to bed, he longed for books that recounted the romances of chivalry, but none were available. Instead, he was given the Life of Christ and the Lives of the Saints.
Ignatius's Autobiography recounts:​
As he [Ignatius] read them over many times, the Life of Christ and the Lives of the Saints, he became rather fond of what he found written there. Putting his reading aside, he sometimes stopped to think about what he had read, and at other times about the things of the world that he used to think about before. Of the many vain things that presented themselves to him, one took such a hold on his heart that he was absorbed in thinking about it for one or two or three or four hours without realizing it. He imagined what he would do in the service of a certain lady; the means he would take so he could go to the country where she lived, the verses, the words he would say to her, the deeds of arms that he would do in her service. He became so conceited with this that he did not consider how impossible it would be because the lady was not of the lower nobility, nor a countess, nor a duchess, but her station was higher than any of these.​
Ignatius, not being of high nobility, could never realistically attain such a woman. Even so, he allowed these fantasies to absorb him for hours.
The Autobiography continues:
Nevertheless, our Lord assisted him, causing other thoughts that arose from the things he read to follow these. While reading the life of our Lord and of the saints, he stopped to think, reasoning within himself. What if I should do what St. Francis did? What if I should do what St. Dominic did? So he pondered over the many things that he found to be good, always proposing to himself what was difficult and serious. And as he proposed them, they seemed to him easy to accomplish. But his every thought was to say to himself ‘St. Dominic did this; therefore I have to do it. St. Francis did this; therefore I have to do it.’ These thoughts also lasted a good while, but when other matters intervened, the worldly thoughts mentioned above returned. And he also spent much time on them. This succession of such diverse thoughts, either of the worldly deeds he wished to achieve or the deeds of God that came to his imagination, lasted for a long time. And he always dwelled at length on the thought before him until he tired of it and put it aside and turned to other matters.
​The Autobiography then records Ignatius's great moment of grace:
Yet there was this difference. When he was thinking about the things of the world, he found much delight in them. But afterwards, when he was tired and put them aside, he found that he was dry and discontented. But when he thought of going to Jerusalem barefoot, eating nothing but herbs and undergoing all of the rigors that he saw the saints had endured, he felt consoled when he had these thoughts, but even after putting them aside he remained content and happy. He did not notice this however, or stop to ponder the difference until one time his eyes were opened a little. And he began to marvel at the difference and to reflect upon it, realizing from experience that some thoughts left him sad and others happy. Little by little, he came to recognize the difference between the spirits that agitated him — one from the demon, and the other from God.
​"His eyes were opened a little." From this insight was born his teaching on the discernment of spirits. Over his lifetime this wisdom would deepen and provide the foundation for the Society of Jesus, and after his death it would continue to guide Christians to the present day.
Our co-founder, Father Timothy Gallagher, summarizes the teaching of St. Ignatius in this way:
A set of thoughts which are engaging in themselves but which leave me dry and discontented do not have the feel of where God is leading me in my life or where I want to go. A different set of thoughts that are engaging in themselves but do leave my heart happy and content begins to have the feel of where the Lord is leading me in my life and the way that I want to go.
​​​​​​From this point Ignatius set aside the thoughts of the worldly project and never returned to them. Instead, he turned toward a life of holiness. He traveled to Montserrat near Barcelona and made a life-changing confession, spent 11 months in deep prayer out of which his Spiritual Exercises were written, went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and continued on his path with God leading the way.
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The teaching of Ignatius of Loyola gives us a reliable method for discernment. It helps us recognize the movements of the various spirits that move us, deepens our prayer through the Examen, and draws us closer to Christ as it did for Ignatius.
By the time of his death in 1556, the Society of Jesus had grown to 38 colleges and more than 1,000 members. Jesuit missionaries had already reached India, Brazil, and parts of Africa. Within a century they would arrive in North America, providing a strong backbone for Catholic life. Today, he has many spiritual sons and daughters, and the Ignatian Discernment Institute exists to carry his teaching on discernment into the modern world.
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His story is not only history — it is an invitation for each of us to discover God’s presence and guidance in the movements of our own hearts.
Continue the Journey
If you feel drawn to explore this teaching more deeply, here are some ways to begin:
