Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Knights of Columbus Board Meeting
Denver, Colorado
July 31, 2026
In the Footsteps of Ignatius
Last March, I had the privilege of taking part in the incentive trip to Barcelona for top performing insurance agents of the Order. Our trip brought us to holy places where St. Ignatius’ conversion was deepened, and where he found the direction and grace he needed to fulfill his calling. These included the cave at Manresa and the Abbey of Monserrat. With the memory of that pilgrimage still fresh in my mind and heart, I thought I would share with you a brief reflection on what walking in Ignatius’ footsteps taught me and on what his conversion means for us as leaders in the Order.
Monserrat
The story of his life is familiar to all of us. Born in Spain in 1491, Ignatius began life as a hard-charging soldier, only to be wounded at Pamplona and to face a long convalescence. During that time, he read the life of Christ and stories of the saints. His heart was touched. He longed for more. His conversion was underway.
But he had a long way to go. And indeed, he went a long way, trekking up the Catalonian mountains to the already-ancient Abbey of Monserrat. Praying before the beautiful statue of Our Lady of Monserrat, he was moved to confess his sins. It was not an ordinary confession but a heartfelt avowal of all the sins he had ever committed. Ignatius wanted his life to be an open book for the Lord to read, with no secrets, no excuses, and no compromises. Aided my Mary’s maternal love, he bared his soul before her Son who is the judge of the living and the dead.
In making this confession, he took the first step on the road to holiness. He realized that his conversion would be incomplete and that he would be unable to fulfill his calling, if were foolishly trying to deceive God and others. He also saw clearly that the thoughts of his heart mattered to God, that he mattered to God, that he was precious in God’s eyes. In that moment of profound repentance, he heard God’s call to holiness, and his calling to some heroic form of service to Christ and the Church. He was on his way but the road but would long and hard.
Manresa
His pilgrimage next took him to Manresa, to a place of intense solitude, where, it could be said, the first “Ignatian” retreat took place. He went there, no longer clad as a soldier but rather as a poor pilgrim, rejoicing in the newfound peace and joy he derived from the confession of his sins at Monserrat. Along the way, he began to serve the needs of the poor and sick, treating them as if they were Christ himself.
Arriving at Manresa, his initial peace gave way to scrupulosity & inner turmoil. The path to holiness would not be a straight line upward, but a path of twists and turns, alternating between consolation and desolation, between warmth in prayer and complete dryness, between utter conviction followed by severe doubt, confidence in God’s mercy followed by scruples. God was chastising the one he loved. God was testing his soul and training him to discern the movements of his soul, to distinguish what was from God, what was from the devil, and what came from disordered affections.
Finally, there was a period of enlightenment, when Ignatius’ mind and heart were flooded with the love of Christ crucified, and when he surrendered the whole of his existence to Jesus. Thus he was prepared to found the Society of Jesus so as to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
The Upshot
What does this mean for us who live in a very different time and who very different callings in the life of the Church? Let me offer three suggestions.
First, in Ignatius’ conversion story it’s hard to miss the importance of making a good, complete, and unburdening confession. It is key to removing barriers to holiness and discerning what’s going on in our lives and in the depth of our hearts. If we are an open book before the Lord, we will relate to others and exercise our responsibilities with greater freedom and authenticity.
Second, our relationship with the Lord must grow progressively deeper. But when we truly encounter the Lord, our lives may be disrupted and upended. Ongoing conversion is not a broad and glorious highway to heaven. Instead we will find ourselves trekking up a winding mountain path, marked by times of joy and consolation, but also times of trial and doubt, times that try our souls. In the midst of all this, we will come to discover, sooner or later, that the Lord is asking us to surrender the whole of our lives, and to embrace him as our only hope and our only possession.
Finally, something wonderful will happen in our spiritual lives – something we did not manufacture or earn: we, like Ignatius, will be flooded with light; we, like Ignatius, will embrace Christ as Savior and Lord; we, like Ignatius, will experience the interior freedom to follow Christ unreservedly, the freedom to ask Christ, as did Igatius: “What more may I do for your, whom I acknowledge as my Lord?” “What more may I do for others?” “What more may I do as you follower?” St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!