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Catholic Saints
St. Ignatius of Loyola
00:30:50
Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Ben Akers discuss the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a soldier for Christ.
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- [00:02]
Tim Gray
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute, and joining me is Professor Ben Akers, who's also our executive director of Formed. And so he's the one who makes all these things happen here at Formed, and he's the boss of Formed. So it's great to have. And today is the feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. So we're going to talk about this great, great saint, Saint Ignatius. We have a great image of him that was original Sketch that we have, and we use that for part of our series, true reformers, because St. Ignatius gets canonized, I think, the year 1622, and he's right at the Counter Reformation. And he's really the high tide, I would say, of the Counter Reformation. I mean, what he brings in and what he does to renew the Church is just absolutely astounded. It's an amazing story, and we're going to talk about this incredible saint, but I just want to mention we have a book, True Reformers, that the Augustine published, and there's a wonderful chapter on St. Ignatius here, as well as all the other saints who are these stellar saints of the Counter Reformation. This time when the Church was in great corruption and worldliness, and yet it went through an incredible renewal and revival. And that's what we hope is going to happen Age today that the Church has kind of gotten a bit corrupt in some ways and complacent in others and worldly in many. And it's time for a great renewal. And that's what St. John Paul II called the Church to a great new springtime. And the last time we had a great new springtime was really the kind of Reformation, the time of people like Saint Ignatius of Loyola. So let's just go back and talk about St. Ignatius of Loyola. Of course, he's born in 1491 in Spain. And you know, that was a time when there was the beginning of a renewal in Spain. You had Cardinal Jimenez, Francesco Jimenez, who in the 1490s becomes the cardinal Archbishop of Toledo. He works with Queen Isabella. And Queen Isabella really wants a reform of the Church. And it's interesting that the reform of the church in Spain begins with a lay woman, right? It's Queen Isabella who really pushes and uses her, her royalty, to push the pope to appoint this Franciscan who's known as a Holy Priest, Francesco de Jimenez, Cardinal Jimenez. She gets him appointed as the archbishop of Toledo, and then he works with Queen Isabella to bring about a reform in Spain. And of course, one of the fruits of that reform is going to be what we're going to see with the conversion of St Ignatius of Loyola. But let's talk about St Ignatius and how he ends up going through a radical conversion.
- [02:41]
Ben Akers
And just to go back to the point of what you were saying of we need renewal, we need reform in the Church. This is one of the principles that the Counter Reformation teaches us, that we can learn today as well. And I'll say it in Latin and then I'll translate it, because everything always sounds better in Latin, right? Ecclesia semper reformanda. The Church always reforming, that the Church always needs to be in a spirit of reform. And not only the Church, but we, as each one of us, exactly, members of the Church, that we're all called to personal reform. And that's what we see in each of these. Jimenez, as you mentioned before, he reforms himself. It's not until age 48, when he's appointed this cardinal archbishop, that he has a deeper conversion in his own life to read the reform of himself, to lead the reform of the order, the Franciscan order that he's a member of, and then the reform of the clergy, which he's in charge of. And so we really see that it's never too late. And same with St. Ignatius, his conversion happens at age 30. So that's not old, but it's later in life. You think that these. Sometimes we think that these saints are just born saints. They bore the st. Period in front of their name. Right? But they're not. They're just like us. And Ignatius is a great example of that. He was very worldly. He was very vain, even though he was born to a Catholic family, a noble family, youngest of 11 children. By age 7, his mother had died. But he always wanted to be a soldier. That was his dream in life. He loved reading books of chivalry, the knights doing great deeds and fighting for a damsel in distress. These are the books that captured his imagination. This is the life he wanted to choose. And he lived a very vain life. He says that he cared about what he looked like. He was very particular about his looks, about his dress, the way he. His comportment. And these were things that were a priority to him. And he sought his fortune in the army. And so his conversion really takes place at. It begins on the battlefield he's fighting for in the battle of Pamploda. And Pamplona is part of the Kingdom of Navarre. Spain was divided into different countries. And the Kingdom of Navarre was between France and Spain. It's kind of that border there. And he's fighting the battle of Pamplona and he was fighting for the Spanish forces against the French. And at a key moment, the Spanish wanted to pull back. They said, look, we can't compete against the enemy. And even though Ignatius was a lower ranking officer, he rallied the troops and convinced them, no, we need to fight, we need to fight brave. And a cannonball blows through the wall of the town and he stands in the gap and leads the men in a surge of energy from the Spanish forces. But another cannonball rips through his legs, really just tearing his right, the left calf off, his right shin completely broken. And soon after the Spanish have to surrender. And so he is convalescing. And this break was so bad that they had to set it, and they didn't set it really well on the battlefield.
- [05:31]
Tim Gray
And resetting a broken leg without painkillers, you have to re. Break the bone. I mean, that's what's. Just think about that. That's incredibly painful.
- [05:41]
Ben Akers
He almost dies. Yeah, he almost dies on the battlefield because of this re breaking of his leg. And they did such a poor job of it. Actually. He has a bone protruding from his leg and he didn't want to have that bone protruding. So they saw that part of the bone off that's protruding from his leg after the reset. But he's walking with a serious limp. And he was so vain, he said, I don't want to walk with a limp the rest of my life. Re. Break the leg and reset it, stretch it out, and stretch it out with weights. So this is, this is kind of his experience of life. And it's after the second time that he.
- [06:15]
Tim Gray
Yeah, it's amazing, you know, in terms of his vanity, what he's willing to suffer for vanity. And of course he's going to reflect on that. And he'll later on be willing. What, he'll challenge himself. What he'll. What he's. What is he willing to suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ?
- [06:29]
Ben Akers
Right.
- [06:30]
Tim Gray
But he's a tough guy.
- [06:32]
Ben Akers
He's a tough guy.
- [06:32]
Tim Gray
A man of strong willpower already, even before his conversion.
- [06:36]
Ben Akers
So he's recovering in a family's estate and he asked for some books. I want the books about the knights and the damsels and chivalry. Chivalry. That's what I want to read.
- [06:46]
Tim Gray
Like romance and action novel all in one. That's the popular reading then.
- [06:50]
Ben Akers
And then they say we don't have any of those books, we have a life of Christ, and we have some stories of saints, and he's not interested. He's like, I don't really want to. But then he becomes bored because he's just in his bed all day, because.
- [07:04]
Tim Gray
He'S in there for weeks and weeks with, you know, there's no TV to watch. All there is is books. And so he's got to read something. So he starts to read.
- [07:10]
Ben Akers
There's no form now, no Catholic radio. And so he starts to read the life of Christ. He starts to read the lives of the saints, and he's reading those, but he's also having dreams of being a knight still. And he starts to realize what's going to become an important thing in his discernment of spirits is that when he reflects on the lives of the saints, he has great consolation and happiness in the life of Christ. When he reflects on being a knight and doing the things that he had always dreamed of, he quickly becomes dissatisfied and discomforted. And so he realizes that there's desolation and there's consolation in prayer. You know, in this reflection, he realizes he turns it to prayer. He starts to read the lives of the saints. He says, look what Dominic did, the founder of the Dominicans, what Francis did, the founder of the Franciscans. Can't Ignatius do? And so he's inspired by them, seeing that those are the real heroes.
- [08:03]
Tim Gray
I love how God uses his competitive spirit. So, you know, Ignatius is the one who rises to the rank of an officer in the army, and. And he's a competitive guy. You can see that in the battle, he's not going to give up even when the odds are against him. He's going to rally the men to fight the French, right? And once they lose Ignatius, they all give up, right? So you see his competitive leadership skills. And as he's reading the lives of the Saints, as you say, Ben, he's competing with him. He's like, well, I can do that or I can compete with that. What would it look like if I did as much penance or as much prayer as these guys? I could do that. And he's. He's using his imagination, thinking about being competitive and competing, in a sense, with these, you know, these spiritual athletes of Christ, so to speak, you know, these great saints. And God harnesses that ambition.
- [08:52]
Ben Akers
And one of the things that we like to discuss here at the Augusta Institute is that it was because of Cardinal Jimenez's initiative in getting a printing press that these stories were readily available for him to read.
- [09:03]
Tim Gray
Exactly. Yeah. Jimenez used the new technology. He was innovative, and he used the new technology printing press to publish books. And he got these books, spiritual books. And so the Life of Christ that Ignatius read, that was published by Jimenez in his printing press. I think it was by a German, Ludwig something.
- [09:23]
Ben Akers
Ludof the Saxon or something.
- [09:24]
Tim Gray
Ludof the Saxon. Yeah, Ludof the Saxon. His Life of Christ, and likewise with the Lives of the Saints. And so these books are laying around the castle because, you know, Cardinal Jimenez got a printing press at the university he founded for renewing theology and the study of the faith and especially the study of Scripture at Alcala. And so those books are there, and of course, they give him a book to read, and he reads that book and it converts him. And so one of the things we want to do at the Augusta Institute is be like Cardinal Jimenez, who reformed Spain by publishing good books, by good videos and other things to equip people to know the good news, to know the gospel.
- [10:05]
Ben Akers
And just that's what I notice in my own life, that my children just love to look at books, and they love the ones who can read, love to read. And so it matters what books we leave laying around. So that's. We try to be strategic as parents, put the right books out. So that's the book that they're going to pick up and read. And so if you'd like to buy books from the Augusta Institute of our Publishing Week, to have good books around, so that when people visit you or you're looking for something to do, instead of looking at your phone, maybe pick up a book and read A Life of the Saint.
- [10:32]
Tim Gray
It's so important. And I know friends who put really good books in their guest room, you know, to just kind of pique the interest of people, to get an Ignatius moment where somebody starts to take and read, as our founder Augustine did, and that you can take and read, and it can lead to conversion. It can lead to conversion. So let's talk about. All right, so Ignatius goes through this. He's reading the lives of the Saints. He's reading the life of Christ. This inspires him to embark on a new kind of life for himself. So he begins to pray now, and he begins to reflect on this. And then as he gets better and his leg begins to heal, this takes about a year. He decides he's going to go on a pilgrimage. That's what saints do, is they go and they pilgrimage, and he's going to go on pilgrimage. Let's talk about what he does.
- [11:16]
Ben Akers
So he decides to go to this beautiful and ancient shrine in Spain dedicated to Our lady of Montserrat. And it's this beautiful setting, if you've ever been there. It's just outside of Barcelona. It's a beautiful jagged rocks coming up.
- [11:31]
Tim Gray
It's a gorgeous area. I've made the pilgrimage up there. I know you have too. And the rocks, the hills, the beauty and hiking up there, it's gorgeous.
- [11:40]
Ben Akers
It is. And so this is. It's a beautiful image of a Black Madonna that knights would spend all night in vigilance before they would go to battle and they would pray before they were made a knight in front of this image of Mary. This is the tradition. And then they would be enter into the rank of knight. Well, Ignatius wants to do that, but he's given up his dreams of being a knight in the sense of a military captain, of serving in an army, a temporal army. He wants to work for our Lord in the spiritual army. And so he spends all night in vigil before this image of lady of Montserrat. And he leaves his sword at her statue. And they have a copy of the sword. The sword is still. You can still see a copy of the sword there, but then the sword somewhere else, the actual sword somewhere else. So he dedicates his life to Our Lady.
- [12:24]
Tim Gray
Yeah, I love that image of him leaving the sword there and what that represented. I mean, really a break with his life. I mean, you know, he loved vanity, he loved honor and position. And the sword represented all those things. It represented his social class, it represented his career. And so to leave that behind was a big sacrifice. Now, there's a story that as he's making his way to Montserrat, he runs into a Muslim, right? And he gets mad at the Muslim. He talks about theology in God and he almost takes out his sword and kills him, right?
- [12:55]
Ben Akers
He does. He makes a deal with God. He says, if that Muslim takes a right or he takes a left, I'm going to kill him if he goes right, I'm going to let him live if he goes left. And thanks be to God, the providence was that the Muslim went left. But this just shows his passion and his zeal for right teaching and the service of God and his competitive spirit. And his competitive spirit. And so he actually, besides leaving his sword, he actually takes off all his royal garment, his noble armor and his noble garments, and then trades it for a beggar's cloth. And he goes just across the valley to a little cave called Manresa. And you can still visit that today. And it's in Manresa that really he has a deeper conversion. He devotes himself to prayer. He's constantly praying at the shrine, crossing the valley and going to mass at Montserrat. He has a, he has a spiritual director that's Dominican. He's being trained by the Benedictines as well. So he's receiving the great fruits of these religious orders. And he has no idea that he's going to found a religious order. But he's receiving this deep formation in Christian discipleship, praying, fasting and beginning to jot down notes that he receives in his spiritual insights that become the base for the spiritual Exercises.
- [14:03]
Tim Gray
You know, that's a great point that you just made there at the end that this becomes, as he's starting to write down, he's on this retreat in a sense it's almost like a year long retreat, spiritual retreat in the cave in Manrossa, which by the way is so beautiful to go there. And I was shocked when I went. There was nobody really there but a couple people the day that we took a pilgrimage group and we just had a beautiful Mass there. We had a beautiful quiet time in a holy hour to pray. It was just so powerful to pray in that intimate place where Ignatius spent so much time praying. But he gets the Spiritual Exercises there. That's where he discerns it. And as you said, what I love about that, Ben, is I think of the Bible and Moses was a shepherd and God was using that to prepare him when he was a shepherd for his father in law, Jethro. And David of course, was a shepherd. And they become leaders of God's people. And here you have Ignatius, who was an officer and as an officer he was a leader of men in the army and he had to train and then he had to train others. And so he uses the tools of the idea of having an objective and training and rules and discipline. And you know, he uses that backdrop to come up with spiritual training because that's really how he sees what he's doing now in his new vocation. He's going to be a knight for Christ. But he realizes he, he needs a new kind of training. He has the old training for to be a knight of this world. He knows how to train and fight with the sword and how to lead men and how to have armor, but he doesn't know how to put on the spiritual armor. He doesn't know how to use the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And so he needs to learn spiritual training. And so he uses the same practical principles for Training as a soldier, for training spiritually. And I think that is kind of the practical genius behind what he does. He takes his knowledge from one field, that is being a soldier, and he translates that into the spiritual life. And it becomes incredibly practical and powerful for people.
- [16:01]
Ben Akers
It does. And the spiritual, that's by spiritual exercises. That might sound like doing exercises. It means drills. So he's running drills. That's what you would do with military drills. So the spiritual exercises, the spiritual drills that you would do. And when he structures his Jesuits, the Society of Jesus that he founds later, the head of that order is called the Superior General. So even use his military images. It's an army.
- [16:22]
Tim Gray
It's an army. It really is. And that's so powerful. And I think when you know there's so many. It's such a classic tradition now since the time of ignatius in the 16th century, to do an Ignatian retreat or Ignatian spirituality. And a lot of you might be wondering, what is Ignatian spirituality? So we could talk a little bit about that, Ben. But I'll just mention too that we have Father Timothy Gallagher, who has a series of talks on Formed where he talks about discerning spirits and its Ignatian spirituality. And Fr. Gallagher does a great job of breaking down and practically teaching these spiritual principles that came out of St. Ignatius Spiritual Exercises, which was a training manual for discipleship in Christ, really.
- [17:03]
Ben Akers
And one of the most. These are famous and these are wonderful to expose yourself to in your own prayer life and discernment. To read one of the most famous meditations that he puts in there. So week one is reflecting on sin. Week two, the life of Christ, the miracles, the teaching of Christ. Week three, passion and death of Christ. Week four, resurrection and ascension of Christ. So, see, going back to basics. Go back to the life of Christ to realize that I'm a sinner in need of the mercy of our Lord. Let me get to know the Lord. And one of the meditations, the most famous, is the two standards. He's very vivid on imagination. He really wants you to use your imagination. It says, imagine putting yourself on a battlefield and the two armies are separated. And there's two standards. There's the standard of Satan and there's the standard of Christ. And you're going to choose which side of the battle you're going to fight in. And you don't get to be a bystander. You don't get to be a pacifist and say, I'm not in the battle. No, you're in it and you have to be on one of those sides. Are you going to choose to serve Satan or serve Christ? And it's a very powerful meditation that he gives.
- [18:04]
Tim Gray
I love how he uses his imagination and you can see how his vanity in his, you know, pre conversion time, he uses imagination to imagine all these different things and that, that, that fed his vanity. But then as he convalesced and he imagined what it would be like to serve Christ, to be a saint like Saint Dominic or Saint Francis of Assisi and to give your life to Christ. And now in the Spiritual Exercises, he wants people, you know, during these four weeks of a retreat to really systematically go through the life of Christ. And so in that first week, you choose, you know, there's two armies. We're in a great battle in life and there's two sides you can serve and there's no independence, there's no neutral, there's no Switzerland in this battle. You're with Christ or you're against him. And I think if we, you know, the way Ignatius framed it for people is life is a spiritual battle, you know, and there's two struggles going, there's a struggle for two sides going on, struggle of evil and the devil and the struggle for Christ. And it's really stark and it kind of reformulates your commitment.
- [19:15]
Ben Akers
It does. And one of the themes that runs through the Exercises is quo vadim et ad quid. So where am I going and what am I here for? What am I going to do with my life? He's constantly getting us to imagine Christ and imagine life without Christ and how desolate and how despairing that would be because he wants to drive us to a choice. He said, life is short. We're only here in a brief moment of time. We want to make a decision. He realizes all the time he wasted using his imagination for poor things, he wants to use his imagination, now consecrated to Christ, to help people make a good decision to follow him.
- [19:47]
Tim Gray
It's so inspiring. I just love what Ignatius did with those Spiritual Exercises. And it's something that, you know, to go back to the quote you had before about reform has to be ongoing. You don't just go through a conversion once. I mean, you would think, well, didn't Ignatius, you know, convalescing in bed in the castle, didn't he go through his conversion? Why is he spending a year after a pilgrimage praying about whose side am I going to be on and where is my loyalty? And going through the life of Christ? I mean, that's kind of intense, but it Gets to the idea, this idea of ongoing reform. We have a conversion, but we have to have a deeper and deeper ongoing conversion. And I think Ignatius spiritual exercises really point the way towards that in a practical way.
- [20:27]
Ben Akers
He says Ignatius said that in looking back at all the graces of his life, the conversion, the founding of the Jesuits, the growth of the Jesuits, being a priest, all the graces of his life, he said, were nothing compared to the grace he received at Manresa. He really saw this as the foundational moment of his life. Deeper conversion to Christ and a complete placing himself under the lordship of Christ.
- [20:51]
Tim Gray
You know, and that can only happen when you're generous with God. You have to give him time, you know, And I think one of the things that is, you know, certainly for Ignatius, and he made it for his followers, they have to take a retreat every year. And this idea of making a retreat and having a silent retreat is so powerful. You know, I was gone last week and I did my annual retreat. And so I like to spend at least three days. And so, you know, I went up. There's not a lot of retreat centers that are open right now. So I went up and just went camping in the mountains for three, four days, silent retreat by myself. And, you know, so speaking of Ignatius being here in Manresa, it's so powerful. So it's so important for us to spend that extended time, not just to have our daily prayer time, but to spend that extra time once a year, Give a couple days, give three days totally to God and immerse yourself in the word of God and listen to God. That's what Ignatius did. And it's so powerful.
- [21:49]
Ben Akers
Think of what a soldier would not want to do. Retreat. Right in the battle of life, they don't want to retreat. But it's so essential. Sometimes you just have to retreat so that you can gather your forces, gather your strength to then do the counter attack. So retreat doesn't mean you're running away from something. It actually means that you're regathering yourself to prepare for the next fight, the battles that lay ahead.
- [22:10]
Tim Gray
And there's a lot of battles ahead for Ignatius in his life. So let's just talk about the next stage of his life. After he prays, gets the discernment at Manresa, he goes on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He thought he would be called to be in the Holy Land. That's what he wanted to dedicate his life to. Praying Scripture gave him a desire for pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And of course, you and I love to do pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And we love to lead pilgrimages to the Holy Land. And I think that's such a powerful thing. Well, he goes on pilgrimage. The Franciscans tell him to go back home. They kick him out. They like, look, we've got the Holy Land covered. You go with something else. And then he's had these profound spiritual experiences. He's got these practical exercises, and he wants to start leading people through these exercises. And he starts to do that. But then different church leaders say, well, who are you to start being a spiritual guy? This is before he's a priest. And, you know, they say, you need to get educated. You got to get a degree. And so because the Augusta Institute didn't exist then, he couldn't go get his master's at the August Institute. But what he does is he goes to university. And in fact, he actually kind of starts with secondary school, which is like a high school he has to go.
- [23:17]
Ben Akers
Back to because he didn't. He wasn't planning on going to get educated. He just wanted to be a soldier. He didn't need the schooling. So he's in. He goes back as an adult with younger people, and he's made fun of for it. And so he. But he suffers all these abuses and humbles himself as part of his humility. And he goes to this incredible training. And at the University of Paris, the best university in Europe at the time, he meets seven men that he begins to lead through the spiritual exercises that form the foundation for the Society of Jesus. They're going to consecrate themselves under poverty, chastity and obedience, and a special devotion to do whatever the Holy Father asks them, them to do. And this is the beginning of the Society of Jesus. They're dedicated the Holy name of Jesus.
- [23:58]
Tim Gray
We'll come back to this, the fun of the order in a minute, but I just want to back up. And I think one of the great times of testing for Ignatius was this time where he was. He has all these great spiritual insights, right? I mean, you know, he has a vision of Our lady. He has these powerful mystical experiences in prayer. And yet, you know, the local clergy are saying, no, you can't do that. You have to stop leading people on retreats and doing things until you get educated. And, you know, it would have been easy for him to say, wait a minute, you're not living a deeply reformed life. You're not deeply spiritual. Why would I listen to you? And he could have done that. But I think at this great test, he decided to obey the Church, even church members who weren't spiritual like him, who were kind of worldly at best, and yet he obeyed them. He obeyed the church, and he got that education. He spent years and years studying. And yet that led him, as you said, to Paris, to meeting the right people. And he meets these other students who become with him his companions, these seven companions that will form the basis of this new religious order, which is really extraordinary. If he's not obedient, there's not the Jesuit order, I believe.
- [25:06]
Ben Akers
I think that's a great insight and a great observation, because obedience is a very difficult thing to do, to practice. And it comes from the word to listen to in Latin. You have to first listen to what the Lord wants you to do before you can say yes to it. And he's listening to those who have been rightfully put over him. And he might disagree with their assessment, but yet he still says yes. And it bears incredible fruit in his life. So I think that's right.
- [25:31]
Tim Gray
No, I think look at the lives of the saints and I think of St. Ignatius, that was a key test. And I think the devil really wanted to make him trip up at that point to say, you're so spiritual, you don't need to do these things. What's getting more education going to do? And what was getting more education at the time was going to do was first off, obedience, conformity of his will to the will of God. And then secondly, God blessed that obedience and he got a good theological education, which was going to be very important for him to lead this order, that we're going to become an order of teachers. Just talk about what the Jesuits end up doing.
- [26:06]
Ben Akers
And just even in Ignatius lifetime, there's incredible fruit. I think a thousand members by the time he dies in 1556. And we really see what the Jesuits, in looking at them, what they're dedicated to, comes out of the life of St. Ignatius. They're dedicated to education. This is one of the great things that Jesuits are known for today is think of all the colleges and universities that they have founded. Look at the legacy of the Jesuits in the church. And the education was also to evangelize. So that this great passion that Ignatius has to evangelize, that he sends missionaries to the east and to the west because they're an intellectual order. He forms them so they can, when they go east and they go west, they can engage the culture that they meet, but also apply the principles of the gospel without changing the gospel at all, but bringing it to the culture in which they meet and they Convert people in the Francis Xavier, one of his most famous followers, is an incredible missionary. Evangelizing the east, we're familiar with in the west, St. Isaac Jogues, St. John de Beaubeuf here in North America, the East and the West. And then the Jesuits were also key in re evangelizing or keeping the faith going in Elizabethan England, all the great persecution. And so they combated heresy there. So I think education and, and evangelization are two things that Ignatius was key to. Ignatius spirituality and to his life, seeing how he served the mission of the church. And then we see that as part of their legacy.
- [27:33]
Tim Gray
I think that what, you know, he didn't plan to be in educational order to be in education. It kind of just happened. But I think it didn't, obviously didn't happen by chance. It was God's providence. But I think Ignatius and the early judges were so focused on formation that spiritual formation, the Spiritual Exercises formation. And I think it became almost natural for them to fall into education because I really believe that education is about formation. And that's at the center of our mission here at the Augustine Institute is to help Catholics understand, live and share their faith. And so we do an intensive formation for our graduate students with over 560 graduate students last year. And yet we also then bring formation with the books that we publish, the videos that we do here on Formed. Everything about Formed is exactly that. It's about formation. People are like, why did you call it formed? Because, you know, like St. Ignatius, like so many of these great saints, like St. Augustine, they recognize that formation at the heart of formation and at the heart of education is formation of the heart and the mind by the truths of God. And that formation equips us, trains us to be disciples of Christ in the world. And that's what, that's what our whole mission is here. And that's why I find St Ignatius so inspiring and his story so compelling. And you can read that story. There's a good brief chapter here on Ignatius life on our book True Saints of the Catholic Reformation. And you can get that at Catholic Market. So our E commerce store at Catholic Market, you can find true reformers. You can also find the videos. We have a video series. Our dean, Christopher Bloom did a beautiful series here in the studios on. On the Saints of the Reformation. He did a whole episode on St. Ignatius and it's a fantastic series. You can watch and you can just find that unformed. You can go and find the episode on St. Ignatius and watch that, and that will inspire you here on this, on this feast, day of Saint Ignatius. Such a great feast and such a great saint. Well, there are so many great Jesuits who formed me. Father Frank Zignac, who's passed away now, formed me in my doctorate program. He studied at Oxford. He was the your classic Jesuit who was brilliant, well studied, and he mentored me in Greek and in my doctorate program. So I'm grateful to him. On this day I'll pray for him. And I also am grateful for a couple of my great Jesuit friends who are great heroes of mine. And that would be Father Spitzer, who is an incredible Jesuit and holy man and very wise. We have a lot of his things on form that you can find. And then another great Jesuit contemporary is Father Fessio, who started Ignatius Press and all these great books. And we work with Father Fessio and jointly publish a lot of books with Ignatius Press. So a lot to be grateful for. Thank you for watching and thank you for supporting us in our mission circle. May the Lord bless and keep you. You can watch these interviews in video format by visiting formed.org formed is an online Catholic streaming service created by the Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press with award winning studies and parish program, inspiring audio content, movies, ebooks and family friendly kids programming to support the mission of the Augustine institute. Please visit missioncircle.org.