31 July 2022
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time/ The Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Today marks a very important anniversary for the Jesuits. On 1548 the new formed Society of Jesus received the papal recognition of the Spiritual Exercises. The importance of the is fact was not lost on Ignatius who rewrote the founding document of the Society of Jesus, the Formula of the Institute, so that this document would include mention of the papal bull that approved the Exercises. Since the founding of the Jesuit order to the most recent identification of apostolic priorities, the Spiritual Exercises have stood at the forefront of all the ministerial works of the Jesuits. In a way, it is not so much a work but rather a focus, one that sees God as the center of human actions and a love of God as the fundamental value of all human choices. These choices, as Ignatius writes in the First Principle and Foundation, identify the correct relationship of human choices and how creation is governed by that same love of God and what will take us closer to the that love. That Ignatius would die eight years to the day of the official establishment by the hierarchy of the Church would come as no surprise since in Christian numerology eight was the number of perfection and completion. Although we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius, we should never forget that this day also marks the anniversary of the papal recognition of the Exercises and its subsequent promotion by many popes.