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A Caballero in Love

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

James Straukamp S.J.
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Practically from the very start of the Society of Jesus there has been a certain stern picture painted of Jesuits. We read about the ‘cunning, crafty’ Jesuits; the ‘intellectual, unemotional’ followers of St Ignatius, pascal calls them ‘people who do not keep their word, without faith, without honour, without truth, deceitful in heart, deceitful in speech', and then in one of the more recent common evaluations Time magazine (September 16, 1957) stylizes the Society as a calculating, and, in every sense, a cold military organization. These opinions on the spirit of the society of Jesus have one thread of common unity: the Jesuit is a stoic statue impervious to ordinary human emotions and feelings. He is calculating and reasoning; the intellect has smothered the heart. His two daily examinations of conscience, the varied ‘experiments’ to test his abilities and his control, the introspective, personal evaluations, all these have allowed him to gain mastery over his human nature; a mastery that somehow removes the human and leaves just the nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 16 , Issue 187 , February 1962 , pp. 323 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu (MHSI), Epistolae Nadal, 4. 615 ff. miguel Nicolau, S.J., JerSnimo Nadal, S.I. (Madrid, 1949), p. 259.

2 Pedro Leturia, S.J., Ihigo de Loyola (New York, 1949). The facts of his early life which point up his affective character are taken from this work. Also used: Hugo Rahner, S.J., The Spirituality of St Ignatius Loyola (Maryland, 1953)

3 Americo Castro, The Structure of Spanish History (Princeton, 1954). Cites Roma Abrasada, p. 23. Pp. 22-6 contain some admirable reflections and references on the place of the soil in the Spanish make-up.

4 MHSI, Fontes Narrativi de S. Ignatio, 11386;

5 Speaking of his experience along the river Cardoner, Nadal says, ‘And so he such a stimulus for contemplation and union with God, that he experienced enced devotion in all things and everywhere very easily'. Platica 3 en Coimbra, n. 66, cited by Joseph Conwell, s.j., Contemplation in Action (Spokane, 1957) p. 30.

6 MHSI Fontes Narrativi, 1:400-2.

7 The translation of these passages is by W. J. Young, Woodstock Letters, 87 (July, 1958): 234-8.

8 At this time his heart overflowed with consolation and his eyes with tears. He felt great devotion at the thought of our Lord, and this remained with him as he went about the streets of Rome to consult various officials. Conwell op. cit. p. 33 cites Ephemeris S.P.N. Ignatii.

9 MHSI, Exerdtia Spiritualia, pp. 697-9. This is echoing Rule 15 of the summary” of the Constitutions, and Part X of the Constitutions.

10 Ibid., 478

11 Josè Aicardo, Comentario a las Constituciones de la Compana de Jesus (Madrid 1929) 2:513.

12 MHSI, Epistolae Nadal, 4:651-2.

13 Ibid., 668-9.

14 Ibid,. 651.