IGNATIUS
643
IGNATIUS
point of poverty in churches. It shows that in making
up his mind he was marvellously aided by heavenly
lights, intelligence, and visions. If, as we may surely
infer, the whole work was equally assisted by grace,
its heavenly inspiration will not be doubtful. The
same conclusion is probably true of " The Spiritual
Exercises".
VII. Later Life and Death. — The later years of Ignatius were spent in partial retirement, the corre- spondence inevitable in governing the Society leaving no time for those works of the active ministry which in themselves he much preferred. His health too began to fail. In 1551 , when he had gathered the elder fathers to revise the constitutions, he laid liis resignation of the generalate in their hands, but they refused to accept it then or later, when the saint renewed his prayer. In 1554 Father Nadal was given the powers of vicar- general, but it was often necessary to send him abroad as commissary, and in the end Ignatius continued, with Polanco's aid, to direct everything. With most of his first companions he had to part soon. Rodriguez started on 5 March, 1540, for Lis- bon, where he eventually found- ed the Portuguese province, of which he was made provincial on 10 October, 154(). St. Francis Xavier (q. v.) followed Rodri- guez immediately, and became provincial of India in 1549. In September, 1541, Salmeron and Broet started for their perilous mission to Ireland, which they reached (via Scotland) next Lent. But Ireland, the prey to Henry VIII's barbarous vio- lence, could not give the zealous missionaries a free field for the exercise of the ministries proper to their institute. All Lent they passed in Ulster, flying from persecutors, and doing in secret such good as they might. With difficulty they reached Scotland, and regained Rome, Dec, 1542. The beginnings of the Society in Germany are connected with St. Peter Faber (q. v.). Blessed Peter Canisius (q. v.), Le Jay, and Bobadilla in 1542. In 1546 Laynez and Salmeron were nominated papal theologians for the Council of Trent, where Canisius, Le Jay, and Covillon also found places. In 155.3 came the picturesque, but not very successful mission of Nunez Barretto as Patriarch of Abyssinia. For all these missions Ignatius wrote minute instructions, many of which are still extant. He encouraged and exhorted his envoj^s in their work by his letters, while the reports they wrote back to him form our chief source of information on the missionary triumphs achieved. Though living in Rome, it was he who in effect led, directed, and animated his subjects all the world over.
The two most painful crosses of this period were probably the suits with Isabel Roser and Simon Rod- riguez. The former lady had been one of Ignatius's first and most esteemed patronesses during his begin- nings in Spain. She came to Rome later on and per- suaded Ignatius to receive a vow of obedience to him, and she was afterwards joined by two or three other ladies. But the saint found that the demands they made on his time were more than he could possibly allow them. " They caused me more trouble ", he is re- ported to have said, " than the whole of the Society ", and he olstained from the pope a relaxation of the vow he had accepted. A suit with Roser followed, which she lost, and Ignatius forbatle his sons hereafter to be- come ex officio directors to convents of nims (Scripta
PnRTR.\lT OF St. Ignatius
Sanchez-Coello, Madrid
de S. Ignatio, pp. 652-5). Painful though this must
have been to a man so loyal as Ignatius, the difference
with Rodriguez, one of his first companions, must have
been more bitter still. Rodriguez had founded the
Province of Portugal, and brought it in a short time to
a high state of efficiency. But his methods were not
precisely those of Ignatius, and, when new men of
Ignatius's own training came under him, differences
soon made themselves felt. A struggle ensued in
which Rodriguez unfortunately took sides against
Ignatius's envoys. The results for the newly formed
province were disastrous. Well-nigh half of its mem-
bers had to be expelled before peace was established ;
but Ignatius did not hesitate. Rodriguez having been
recalleil to Rome, the new provincial being empowered
to dismiss him if he refused, he demanded a formal
trial, which Ignatius, foreseeing the results, endeav-
oured to ward off. But on Simon's insistence a full
court of in<|uiry was granted, whose proceedings are
now printed and it unanimously condemned Rodriguez
to penance and banishment from
the province (Scripta etc., pp.
666-707). Of all his external
works, those nearest his heart,
to judge by his correspondence,
were the building and foundation
I if the Roman College ( 1 55 1 ) , and
of the German College (1552).
For their sake he begged, worked,
and borrowed with splendid in-
sistence until his death. The
success of the first was ensured
liy the generosity of St. Francis
Borgia, before he entered the
Society. The latter was still in
a struggling condition when
Ignatius died, but his great
ideas have proved the true and
best foundation of both.
In the summer of 1556 the ■saint was attacked by Roman lever. His doctors did not foresee any serious conse- quences, but the saint did. On 30 July, 1556, he asked for the last sacraments and the papal blessing, but he was told that no immediate danger threat- ened. Next morning at day- break the infirmarian found him lying in peaceful prayer, so peaceful that he did not at once perceive that the saint was actually dying. When his condi- tion was realized, the last blessing was given, but the end came before the holy oils could be fetched. Per- haps he had prayed that his death, like his life, might pass without any demonstration. He was beatified by Paul V on 27 July, 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV on 22 May, 1622. His body lies under the altar designed Ijy Pozzi in the Gesu. Though he died in the sixteenth year from the foundation of the society, that body already numbered about lOOOrehgious (of whom, however, only 35 were yet professed) with 100 religious houses, arranged in 10 provinces. (Sacchini, op. cit. infra., lib. I, c. i, nn. 1-20.) For his place in history see Counter-Reformation. It is impossible to sketch in brief Ignatius's grand and complex charac- ter: ardent yet restrained, fearless, resolute, simple, prudent, strong, antl loving. The Protestant and Jansenistic conception of him as a restless, bustling pragmatist bears no correspondence at all with the peacefulness and perseverance which characterized the real man. That he was a strong disciplinarian is true. In a young and rapidly growing body that was inevitable; and the age loved strong virtues. But if he believed in discipline as an educative force, he despised any other motives for action except the love of God and man. It was by studying Ignatius as a
