Two Roommates
Of the two roommates who came to believe in Ignatius's holiness, each by a different path, the first was Pierre Favre (Peter Faber), a shepherd from the Alps of Savoy. From childhood he had suffered greatly from imagined or real fears, and during one of these bouts he had vowed to God to live his whole life in chastity. Now, at twenty, he kept trying to hide a troubled soul, which resisted the temptations of the self in a feverish state, behind a stiff and disciplined manner. Ignatius made no claim to intelligence or brilliance, but his inner feelings let him see easily into the hidden life of others. He guessed his young friend's trouble and assured him that the impulses of the self could be brought under a trained will.
But how is the will to be trained? Ignatius of Loyola answered: through the spiritual exercises. So the two began practicing together.
The other roommate was Francis Xavier, who came from Pamplona, the very place where Ignatius had served as a soldier. He had a long family tree of distinguished ancestors and was a handsome, wealthy, proud and pleasure-loving young man who knew all the taverns of Paris. Francis laughed at the two ascetics and boasted of his conquests. Even so, he was bright and successful in his studies; he had already taken his master's degree and was working toward a doctorate. One day he saw a man whose face was disfigured by disease, and it set him thinking. On another occasion, when he spoke of his inner need to become famous and to shine in the world of letters, Ignatius quietly quoted a line from the Gospel: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Francis was disturbed by the words and never could drive them out of his ears. Later he too joined Ignatius and Favre in the spiritual exercises; perhaps what moved him was an inner pride that would not let him lag behind the other two in enduring hardship, cold and suffering. They fasted, slept on the floor of a cold room in thin shirts, and walked barefoot and almost unclothed through snow, to harden their bodies against difficulty and at the same time bring them under the command of the will.
The Spiritual Exercises
The Spiritual Exercises, first begun at Manresa, had now taken a fuller form. Ignatius modeled them on the pattern set by Don García de Cisneros, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat, in his book Exercises for the Spiritual Life (1500), but he also poured all his own passionate feelings and imagination into that original mold. As a result his little book became one of the driving forces of recent history. (The translator notes that it took several years to compile.)
Ignatius based his thought and teaching on the authority of Scripture and the infallibility of the Church. In his view, individual judgment in matters of religion could be nothing but an empty claim and the mischief of vain, hollow minds. "We must always be ready to believe that what appears white to us is black, if the hierarchical Church so defines it." To be free of torment of conscience, we must bring ourselves up as obedient servants of God and of God's vicar on earth, the Church.
The first exercise asks us to picture our sins and reckon what punishment each deserves. The devil was condemned to hell's fire for a single sin, and is not each of ours the same kind of revolt against the divine will? For counting daily sins it is well to mark each one on lines that stand for the days of the week, and then to try to reduce the number of marks every day. The retreatant kneels in a narrow, dark room or cell and pictures hell as vividly as he can, with its terrors, cries and despair, and then asks himself how he can escape that everlasting torment. The only answer is through Christ, who gave up his life and accepted death on the cross to save us. (A footnote of the source observes that Luther had exactly the same fears of hell's fire and preached the same convictions: repentance through penance, and salvation by faith in Christ's redeeming sacrifice.)
Next we should reflect on the details of the life of Christ and the great historical events that accompanied it, and with the power of imagination kneel before the leading figures of that divine epic and kiss the hems of their robes. After two full weeks of such meditation we follow Christ step by step through the stages of his passion, in the painful moments when he stumbles under the weight of the cross. We must feel in ourselves that we have prayed his last prayer with him in Gethsemane, suffering with him, and we must share his death and burial. In the fourth week we find ourselves in the resurrection, see Christ rise victorious from the tomb, and ascend with him to heaven. Strengthened by this blessed vision, we must be ready, like soldiers who have staked their lives, to bring the devil to his knees and bring people to Christ, bearing every hardship gladly in that holy struggle and offering our lives to him joyfully.
The Vow of Montmartre
This call to lifelong sacrifice found nine followers among the students of the University of Paris: serious young men who had for the first time sensed how senseless the world could be, and who wished to find in that sea of doubts and fears an anchor of faith and hope. They volunteered to place their destiny, their life and their salvation entirely in Ignatius's hands. He proposed that at a suitable time they go together to Palestine and live there for a while, as far as possible, in the very manner of Christ.
On 15 August 1534, Ignatius, Favre, Xavier, Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, Nicolás Bobadilla, Simão Rodrigues, Claude Jay, Jean Codure and Paschase Broët gathered in a small chapel in Montmartre, vowed to live all their lives in chastity and poverty, and swore that after two more years of study they would travel to the Holy Land. They had no definite plan yet for fighting Protestantism; they considered Islam their great enemy. They showed no interest in theological debate, and their main goal was advance in holiness and devotion. Their movement sprang more from Spanish mysticism than from the intellectual controversies customary at the time. In their view the best argument was a life of faith.
Venice and Rome
In the winter of 1536–1537 they crossed France on foot, passed over the Alps and reached Venice, hoping to find a way from there to Jaffa. But Venice was at war with the Ottoman Turks, and the voyage was impossible. During the delay Ignatius met Carafa and for a while joined the Theatines. Through his contact with these devoted priests, his decision to live in Palestine changed, and he thought of dedicating his own life and his companions' to the service of the Church in Europe itself. After consulting his disciples, they agreed that if the road to Palestine had not opened after a year's wait, they would all put themselves at the disposal of the pope to be given whatever duties he saw fit. Favre was able to obtain permission for the whole group to be ordained priests.
A Portrait of Ignatius
At this time Ignatius was forty-six. His head had grown bald and he limped slightly. But for the fine, aristocratic marks of his face, his pointed chin and nose, his sunken, dark, piercing eyes and his dignified bearing, his short stature of one hundred and fifty-seven centimeters, according to the source, would have made him seem a negligible and ineffectual man; as he was, he had the look of an entranced saint ready to give his life. Ignatius wished no one harm, though he thought it necessary to establish the Inquisition's authority, and in truth it must be said that he himself was a victim of that body, not an enforcer of its decrees. He was strict yet kind; he gladly nursed the sick and the plague-stricken; and his wish was to bring people to the religion of Christ not by fire and sword but by gaining influence over young and flexible minds and souls and planting firm faith in their hearts.
Although he was himself the founder of one of the most successful orders in Christendom at training individuals, Ignatius gave little weight to learning or the power of thought. He had no mastery of theology and took no part in the subtle disputes of the scholastics. By nature he preferred direct perception to argued understanding. He did not feel the need to offer proofs for the existence of Christ, Mary and the saints, because he was certain he had seen them with his own eyes, and felt their presence to be nearer to him than anything or anyone around him. Inwardly, Ignatius was a man intoxicated with the presence of Christ; yet, despite these inner mystical experiences, he was a man who never let go of effort and labor. With flexible methods he could reach his unchanging goals. He never chose a wrong road to reach a right end, but he had the ability and wisdom to take account of the times, moderate his hopes and wishes, adapt his methods to the character of people and conditions, use prudence where needed, judge people shrewdly and pick able helpers and servants from among them, and lead his followers, as he saw it, like the commander of an army, assigning them work suited to their talents.
Ignatius called his small band of followers, in military language, the "Regiment of Jesus." They were in truth soldiers who had enlisted voluntarily for the whole of their lives in the fight against unbelief and the laxity of the Church, and for this reason they gladly accepted the strict discipline of military life and, united in heart and purpose, submitted to the absolute command of their leader.
In the autumn of 1537, Ignatius, Favre and Laínez set out from Venice for Rome to have their plans approved by the pope. They made the whole journey on foot and kept themselves alive on the bread and water they begged along the way. Throughout the journey they sang hymns with cheerful hearts, as though certain that from the source of the intention and energy of that small group a great and powerful organization would one day arise.