Grain cost so much that a hundred men left Rome

ROME, Papal States, September 1555 AD — St. Ignatius of Loyola sent more than a hundred of his own men out of Rome this month. Grain had got too expensive to feed them all. The men who stayed at the Roman College were given less to eat. He was sixty-four.

The men who started the order with him had chosen him as its head in 1541 AD. He had run the Society of Jesus from a house in Rome ever since.

About a hundred and fifty men of his order were living in Rome in January, and more kept arriving. Among them were the students of the Roman College. St. Ignatius had opened that school four years before, and the lessons there were in Latin and Greek. They all ate every day. The college had no money it could count on from one month to the next.

What the house lived on came in as alms — gifts of money from people in Rome. In May 1551 AD those gifts nearly stopped. People in Rome were saying that St. Francis Borgia had left St. Ignatius a great deal of money. It was not true.

On March 1 there were twenty-five scudi in the house, and that was all the money they had. A rubbio of grain cost seven or eight scudi, and a cask of wine fifteen or sixteen. All the money in the house would not have bought two casks of wine.

In February St. Ignatius had told Juan Alfonso de Polanco, the man who wrote his letters for him, to start building two sick rooms straight away. Polanco was to borrow the money for them. The house and the college had grown fast. If a lot of men fell ill, there would be nowhere to put them. St. Ignatius said the two of them might be thrown into prison for the debt. The last thing he said about it was that God would help, and that they should trust God.

Who had to go

Then, this month, the price of grain rose. St. Ignatius sent more than a hundred of his men out of Rome, to places outside the city.

In January more and more students had been arriving in Rome. St. Ignatius had asked the heads of the Society’s other colleges around Italy for help. They were to take some of the students into their own houses.

On March 1 there had been close to a hundred and sixty of his order in the city. Now more than a hundred were gone. About seventy were at the Roman College that year. The men left there were the ones given less to eat.

That same month St. Ignatius sent for three of the men closest to him. They were Diego Laínez, Polanco and Cristóbal de Madrid. Diego Laínez was one of the first seven companions of the Society. Cristóbal de Madrid looked after St. Ignatius when he was ill. He told them he was certain that within a year the college would have what it needed.

Polanco wrote afterwards that St. Ignatius was sure about the future only twice in his whole life. One was this promise about the college. The other was the day he would die. Both came true at the time he said they would.

At the start of that September he had been in excellent health. Through the winter his health gave way, and by February 1556 AD he could no longer say Mass. He went on running the Society for another ten months. He died at Rome early on the morning of July 31, 1556 AD.