The life of Ignacio of Loyola

Ignacio de Loyola is a Spanish saint who founded the Jesuits who have made a mark in the world and inspired the lives of many. He has been the founder of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, and been an inspiration to the Ateneo Community. Ateneo has been guided and inspired by the life and teachings of St. Loyola.

After watching the film about the life of Ignacio De Loyola, I can say that I have had a lot of insights and learnings from his life. To be honest, I was never really familiar with the life of Loyola and only knew that he was the founder of the Jesuits. I think that the part of Ignatius’ life that struck me the most would be his recovery from his injury. The event in Loyola’s life that became the start to his spiritual awakening, was when he was hit by a cannonball causing him to be seriously injured. He broke his leg badly and needed immediate care for his injury. In addition to the traumatizing moment that he had experienced, he had to deal with the tragedy of losing his fellow comrades in their battle of Pamplona. His struggle to heal from the emotional pain of losing his comrades and physical pain from his leg was one of the things that struck me the most. Through these hardships, we can see his strength and courage to get through all of the baggage that he was carrying. This is relatable to me because there are times in my life wherein I overthink about the things that have happened in my life that sometimes I blame myself for. I tend to be harsh with myself which I know is a bad habit of mine. These are the moments, however, where faith really kicks in and shines a lot in our life. For me, you can really see the faith through the dark times in our life. It is when these events occur when we should hold on and have faith in God.

I think that the significant learning that I have taken away from this film would be never to give up and just stand by and hold on to my faith especially when going through hardships. After learning about Ignacio’s hardships and struggles, it has inspired me to believe more in God that He will never leave us even when we are going through these dark and hard times. Seeing that Ignacio has gone through so much but continued to inspire numerous people, inspires me to do the same to the people around me.