Who was St. Ignatius of Loyola?
Iñigo López de Loyola was born in 1491 in the family castle above Azpeitia, in the Basque country of Spain, the youngest of thirteen children of minor nobility. He took the name Ignatius later, in Rome. On May 20, 1521, defending the citadel of Pamplona against the French, he was hit by a cannonball that, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "tore open the left calf and broke the right shin." The surgeries left him with a limp.
What happened during the long recovery is the hinge of his life, and he noticed it himself. He asked for the romances of chivalry he liked; the house had only a life of Christ and lives of the saints. He read them and daydreamed between chapters, of knightly deeds one hour and of outdoing the saints the next. Then, the Encyclopedia records, "all of a sudden, he became conscious that the after-effect of these dreams was to make him dry and dissatisfied, while the ideas of falling into rank among the saints braced and strengthened him, and left him full of joy and peace." He concluded that "the former ideas were of the world, the latter God-sent." That observation, made on a sickbed, became the Jesuit method of discernment.
In 1522 he made a general confession at the shrine of Montserrat, gave away his fine clothes, and spent a year at Manresa, often praying in a cave. There, instead of peace, he fell apart. He was, in the Encyclopedia's words, "consumed with the most troublesome scruples. Had he confessed this sin? Had he omitted that circumstance?" He was tempted to kill himself. Franciscan Media calls it "a painful trial of scruples before his peace returned." The notes he kept on what was happening to him grew into the Spiritual Exercises: four weeks of guided meditation, on sin, on the life of Christ, on his Passion and on his risen life, with rules, the Encyclopedia says, on "how to pray, how to avoid scruples, how to elect a vocation in life without being swayed by the love of self or of the world."
Then came a decade of schooling in Barcelona, Alcalá, Salamanca and, from 1528, Paris, where he gathered the companions, Francis Xavier and Peter Faber among them, who took vows with him at Montmartre on August 15, 1534. Paul III approved the Society of Jesus on September 27, 1540, and Ignatius was elected its first general the next spring. He spent his last eighteen years in Rome and died there at daybreak on July 31, 1556, before the holy oils could be brought; he had prayed, the Encyclopedia says, that his death "might pass without any demonstration." Paul V beatified him on July 27, 1609. Gregory XV canonized him in 1622 together with Francis Xavier, Teresa of Jesus, Philip Neri and Isidore the farmer, on March 12 according to the Society of Jesus, though the Encyclopedia gives May 22.
Why Catholics pray to St. Ignatius in discernment and desolation
Catholics go to Ignatius with two kinds of trouble, and he had both.
The first is a decision that will not resolve: a vocation, a job, a marriage, whether to stay or go. Ignatius's gift to the Church is a way of deciding that takes feelings seriously without being ruled by them. He noticed that some thoughts leave a person "dry and dissatisfied" and others leave him "full of joy and peace," and that the difference, watched over time, says something about where they come from. The Exercises are built to teach that watching, and Pius XI thought the method valuable enough that in 1922, in the constitution Summorum Pontificum, he declared Ignatius heavenly patron of all spiritual exercises.
The second kind of trouble is desolation: the mind turning on itself, replaying sins, demanding reassurance, unable to believe it has been forgiven. Ignatius knew that at Manresa so badly that he thought of ending his life. He came out of it, and he wrote rules for others so they would not have to find the way alone. The saint whom Catholics ask for help against scruples is one who nearly died of them.
So a Catholic asks him for what he had afterward: a quiet mind in deciding, the freedom to let go of outcomes, which is what the prayer below is about, and the ability to tell the difference between the voice that builds up and the voice that only accuses. His place as the saint of anxious deciders is older than any decree and came straight from his story.
How to pray to St. Ignatius
Pray to him any day. His memorial is July 31, and the nine days before it, July 22 to 30, are the traditional time for a novena. His body lies under the altar of the Church of the Gesù in Rome. The best way to pray with him, though, is to make a retreat. Even three or four days of the Exercises with a director, which the Encyclopedia notes was his own idea for most people, is a real thing to do with a decision you cannot make.
Say the prayer below once. It is his own, from the last contemplation of the Exercises, and it hands everything over. Then go to Confession, once, well, and do not go back to confess the same thing again out of fear; that is the exact loop Ignatius wrote his rules to break. Find a spiritual director if you can. If the scruples or the dread are constant, if you cannot stop checking, or if, like Ignatius at Manresa, you have thought about ending your life, see a doctor or a therapist as well as a priest. Obsessive anxiety is treatable, and the Church wants it treated. In the United States, call 988 in a crisis.
Ignatius was a soldier who learned, flat on his back, to notice what was happening inside him. That is still the whole method: notice, then choose.