The Counter Reformation: St. Ignatius of Loyola

"Even those already familiar with the life of Ignatius Loyola will enjoy this new biography .It is a very personal life written from a Basque viewpoint,a life in which the parallels between Inigo and Don Quixote are pointed out to good effect.Admirers of Ignatius will be grateful to Fr. Cornelius Buckley for his smooth translation"Thomas Hanley Clancy,S.J.-Back cover.

"Set against the political and religious conflicts of the time,Philip Caraman vividly traces the life of Ignatius Loyola from his birth in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa in 1491 through the founding of the Society of Jesus in Rome in 1540,his death in 1556,and his canonization in 1622.Thoroughly researched,filled with picturesque and intriguing details,this is a captivating portrait of Ignatius as a man,a mystic,and the more familiar soldier-saint.-Jacket.

The author, Father Candido de Dalmases, S.J., a member of the Jesuit Historical Institute in Rome, has spent more than forty years in editing the primary sources about the life, writings, and times of the founder of the Jesuits. He composed the Spanish original of the present biography in a plain, straightforward, and gently warm style which echoes the clear thought, terminology, and nuances of much of Ignatius' own style but avoids its occasional complexities. Into these updating pages, however, he has unobtrusively incorporated the findings of the unusually extensive research from which this book has sprung. To do anything else, in fact, would have been for him difficult and unlikely. Features such as those mentioned above have won abundant praise in the reviews of the Spanish original which have appeared in scholarly and popular periodicals. -Foreword.

"Constructing a Saint Through Images is a facsimile reproduction of the illustrated life of Ignatius of Loyola, Vita beati patris Ignatii Loiolae, published in Rome in 1609 to celebrate his beatification that year by Pope Paul V. The Vita consisted of eighty-one copperplate engravings and was the most elaborate such life produced up to that time. The engraver was Jean-Baptiste Barbe, who enlisted the young Peter Paul Rubens to contribute drawings for the project. The Vita is important for several reasons - the occasion for which it was produced, the influence it had on subsequent Jesuit iconography, the place it held in the Jesuits' campaign for Ignatius' canonization, the role Rubens almost certainly played in its production, and especially for the number and exquisite quality of the engravings. Saint Joseph's University Press has produced this facsimile edition in honor of the 400th anniversary of the original publication. John W. O'Malley wrote the introduction to the volume, and James P.M. Walsh translated the Latin captions."--Jacket.

"The autobiography...does not cover the complete life of Ignatius.It begins abruptly in 1521 at the great turning point in the saint's life-his injury in the battle of Pamplona when the French accupied that town and attacked its citadel.It then spans the next seventeen years up to the arrival of Ignatius and his early companions in Rome...These years are the central years of Ignatius's life.They are the years...that open with his religious conversion and that witness his spiritual growth.They are the years of pilgrimage,to use his own designation,of active travel and searching,and of interior progress in the Christian life.They are the years of preparation for the establishment of the great religious order he will found and for its dynamic thrust in the turbulent Europe and the expanding world of his day."- Introduction.

The Jesuits,like all phenomenally successful institutions,garnered for themselves immense unpopularity and a series of vicious attacks from Christians and atheists alike.They were continually accused of arrogance and from 1773 until 1814 were even suppressed by the Papacy.No religious body has aroused more prejudice and seen its record clouded by so much sheer ignorance.Michael Foss's prime task was to dissolve the myths and the over-subjective paraphernalia.Setting his account vividly against a backgroung of European civilisation at the cross-roads,he has illuminated not only the lives of Loyola and Francis Xavier,their lieutenants and successors,but also the aims and actions of a society whose foundation was one of the most important and far reaching events in the history of the Church.-Jacket.

"The Jesuits" is a vivid chronicle of the Society of Jesus from its founding in 1539 by the Spanish soldier-saint Ignatius Loyola to the present day.This concise history of one of the greatest forces within the Catholic Church opens with an account of Loyola's life,the founding of the Society,the composition of the Spiritual Exercises which have guided members of the Order from its foundation,and the first years,when ,almost immediately, it became clear that the Jesuits metier was teaching.-Jacket

w.w.Meissner writes compassionately about Ignatius origins,early development,conversion, years of prayer and penance,mystical teaching and career,and finally his efforts to found and direct the Society of Jesus.Dr.Meissner not only places Ignatius life against the background of the radical religious,social,and political upheaval of the sixteenth century but goes beyond this to explore the psychic and psychodynamic inner processes that transformed the man into the saint.Dr.Meissner discusses,for example,Ignatius ordeals of body and spirit during his career as a soldier,his conversion experience,the evolution of his personality after conversion,his relationships with women,his lifelong struggles to overcome his aggressive,narcissistic,and libidinal impulses, and the psychology and pathology of his mysticism.-Jacket

This book is written on the basis of the latest research by one of the world's foremost scholars of Ignatius of Loyola,Fr.Andre Ravier.It presents the story of the founding of the Society of Jesus.It is not a strict biography of St.Ignatius (although it does contain pertinent biographical details),but is rather a history of the development of the Jesuit order.It portrays the diverse characters involved in the early Society,and the drama surrounding the tumultous period in the history of the Church during which the order was founded-the Protestant Reformation,intellectual disputes ,and great problems in the universities.-Jacket.

During the years 1551 through 1554,St.Ignatius's first companions urged him to set down on paper,as a sort of "founder's testament and paternal instruction" for the nascent Society of Jesus,an account of how God had guided him from the beginning of his religious conversion.Initially reluctant to do so, Saint Ignatius did eventually dictate an account of the profound spiritual experiences that changed a young Spanish grandee with ambitions for grandeur and worldly honors into a great saint.It is this account that the skillful pen of Fr. Parmananda Divarkar,S.J.,sets into lucid English in this volume.-Jacket.

Peter Du Brul,himself a Jesuit,has moved beyond these stereotypes,and invites us to read with him the autobiography that Ignatius dictated towards the end of his life at the request of his fellow Jesuits.In it we see how Ignatius records his own development from amateur soldier and reader of romances to head of a worldwide order and mystic.The mistakes he made,the exaggerations and false emphases are all set down,as well as the discoveries of the way forward.The principles of 'discernment' were principles he learned from hard experience.In this volume,the original text of the Autobiography is followed by Peter Du Brul's personal and very accessible commentary.-Jacket