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Ignatius lived an eventful life during an eventful time. In the early 1500s Christianity was in turmoil as Marin Luther and Jean Calvin challenged Church doctrine and authority, and the wars of Emperor Charles V ravaged Europe. One of these wars left Ignatius badly wounded, leading to a long convalescence and a subsequent pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Eventually he would found a new religious order named the Society of Jesus, reinvigorating the Church at a tumultuous time and helping to bring Christianity to new frontiers. By the time of his death in 1556, there were more than 1,000 Jesuits working across the globe.

The videos and recommended readings below provide a short sketch of the life of Ignatius Loyola. The four featured videos offer a simple introduction, with the first video giving the most detailed look at his life. The fourth video adds the perspective of “finding God in all things” as it narrates the life of Ignatius. Below these are recommended readings as well as a few resources for the intermediate and advanced levels.

At the bottom of this page is a resource designed specifically for high school students. This simple biography of Ignatius provides a more in-depth exposition of his life told over nine chapters. It also introduces readers to the basic components of Ignatian spirituality and offers guiding questions at the end of each chapter for further reflection.

For a quick overview of Ignatius's life, click the image above to see a timeline from Jesuits.org.

 

For a short biography of Ignatius, see Adrian Porter, S.J., “Ignatius of Loyola: The Man and His Spirit.”  See also Norman O’Neal, “A Life of Ignatius of Loyola.

For those already familiar with the basic contours of Ignatius’s life, check out the following resources:

  • A feature-length film by the Filipino Jesuits entitled “Ignatius of Loyola” (2016). The film begins with Ignatius’s childhood and follows his life through his studies in Spain and interrogation before the Inquisition.
  • A 23-minute video by a Jesuit scholar who provides a tour of Ignatius’s living quaters in Rome.
  • The autobiography of St. Ignatius.
 
To learn even more about the early history of the Jesuits, the leading expert in this area is John O’Malley. His book, The First Jesuits, is probably too ambitious to tackle at one sitting, but strongly recommended is his article “The Distinctiveness of the Society of Jesus,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 3:1 (2016): 1-16. For those wanting a bit more without having to read the full-length monograph, see O’Malley’s condensed version: The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present (2014), which is only 117 pages long.

For a more in depth study of the life of Ignatius, please see the link below for a Biography of Ignatius Loyola for High School Students. This story of his life is divided into nine chapters of moderate length, and there are reflection questions at the end of each to help the reader prayerfully reflect on Ignatius’s life as well as the reader’s own life. Moreover, the book introduces readers to key aspects of Ignatian spirituality throughout, such as the Examen, contemplation in action, finding God in all things, and praying with one’s imagination. 

 

Ignatius Biography