[B.] St. IGNATIUS of LOYOLA Presentation: The ... - St. Gaspar Bertoni

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in his Fourth Part: to assist souls and one’s neighbor to achieve the last end for which they
were created [# 307].
[3] The Ignatian ideal is simply to “serve and please the Divine Majesty - to seek in all things
God our Lord, putting aside in so far as this will be possible, the love of all creatures, to place it in
the Creator of them all”. The Constitutions provide concrete means that ought to be realized
in this detachment from creatures and this life-long quest for, and service of the Lord. The ideal is
to set aside all that pertains to creatures, honors, riches. The greatest and most intense duty is
always to seek in our Lord, one’s own greater abnegation and continual mortification in all things.
[4] The reflections on the Reign of Christ and the Two Standards, according to Nadal,
sprang the basic idea of the Company of Jesus. In the Two Standards there is manifested how
one is called to develop his own vocation. In the Constitutions there are specified those who
were enemies, the field on which the battle needs to be waged, the objective of one’s activities,
and the concrete manner to follow the eternal King.
[5] The most powerful asceticism of abnegation is based on the third manner of humility
and forms the strong framework for all of the Constitutions. The principle is:
- to surrender ‘glory’ even to the point of accepting injuries, false witnesses, insults,
- and to be thought of as being mentally imbalanced;
- striving for the ideal of giving up one’s own will through the most exacting obedience,
recognizing in the Superior, no matter who he is, one taking the place of Jesus Christ,
- and all this even when there are difficult matters and those repugnant to each one’s
sensual nature;
- conforming oneself totally to seek and to accept as one’s own whatever the Superior
seeks and maintains, in all matters.
[6] The challenge goes on: even more to try oneself in spirit and especially for the greater
abnegation and humility, each one has to be content that all one’s faults and mistakes become
known to one’s superiors by any person whatsoever outside of Confession [Const. # 63]. These
and other fundamental means were the ones that St. Ignatius employed in his Constitutions to
lead his followers to perfection. They are all little building-blocks drawn from the unfolding of the
Spiritual Exercises.
[7] The Company of Jesus - just as the Spiritual Exercises themselves do - is meant to
love. The love is presented as the intrinsic motive and the most suited and efficacious element
to realize the purpose of the Society. If one sets aside love for creatures, this is so that love for
God might have more sway - all things must be placed in reference to the Creator and all loved in
Him. The interior law of charity and the love which the Holy Spirit writes and impresses in hearts
has to be the underlying motive in all their actions. Only an intense love for God can provide the
strength to realize that total and absolute self-renunciation which the Constitutions demand from
the inner-most depths of a believer. One is asked to hand over to God one’s own freedom and
inclinations, in the quest for the most sublime ideal.
[8] The force of these Constitutions consists in the living of the spiritual life, based on the
life-long practice of the Spiritual Exercises which runs throughout the legislation. Their greatness
and most efficacious guarantee is to provide the most adequate organism for the full and
competent service of the Church.
[9] Therefore, between these two books there is a fundamental identity, a single spirit but a
diversity in function and form: