Locked in for a beating, St. Ignatius gets an apology

PARIS, October 1, 1529 AD — Saint Ignatius of Loyola was thirty-eight years old when he started school again. He began at the College of Sainte-Barbe in Paris on October 1, 1529 AD. He moved into a room with two students fifteen years younger than he was, St. Peter Faber and St. Francis Xavier. The rector, the man in charge of the college, was Diego de Gouvea. He had wanted St. Ignatius kept away from its students since the autumn before.

St. Ignatius was a Basque nobleman and had been a soldier. In 1521 AD he was wounded at Pamplona. While he was getting better, he decided to give his whole life to God. Now he was studying so he could do a better job of helping people come close to God. He wanted a degree from Paris for that work.

That autumn, St. Ignatius had taken three men through the Spiritual Exercises, his method of prayer. All three gave away everything they owned to the poor, even their books. Then they went to live by begging at the Hospital of St. James.

One of the three, Amador, lived at Sainte-Barbe. Diego de Gouvea said St. Ignatius had nearly made Amador go mad. So the rector decided to have St. Ignatius beaten in front of everyone as soon as he came to the college. The charge would be leading its students astray.

Same room, same table

St. Peter Faber was twenty-three. He later wrote that the three of them lived in eodemque cubiculo, eadem mensa, eadem bursa (in the same room, at the same table, from the same purse). St. Ignatius’s teacher was Master John Pena. John Pena arranged for St. Peter Faber to tutor St. Ignatius and go over the lectures with him.

At first the lectures were hard for St. Ignatius. Thoughts of God crowded into his mind until he couldn’t listen. He saw he was learning very little. So he went to John Pena and made a promise. He would keep coming to the lectures for as long as he could find enough bread and water to stay alive. After that, the thoughts stopped breaking in, and he studied in peace.

Soon afterwards, the rector came close to carrying out his threat. Every feast day, Sainte-Barbe held formal debates for its students. But St. Ignatius had helped some students start to pray and take their faith seriously. They spent those days in church instead, at confession and Communion. The lecture halls stood empty.

John Pena warned St. Ignatius several times to leave the other students alone. St. Ignatius was only sorry that his teacher cared more about school lessons than about the lessons of Christ. He carried on as before.

So John Pena took the matter to the rector. The two men agreed that the threat would be carried out with a public flogging. They also meant it to drive St. Ignatius out of the college. At a public flogging, a bell rang and the masters gathered in the college hall. Then the student was beaten with rods in front of everyone.

The doors were barred behind him

Friends told St. Ignatius what was planned. He went in anyway, and the doors were locked behind him. He asked to see Diego de Gouvea. The rector was still in his rooms. St. Ignatius told the rector he would gladly take the beating for Christ. But no one could accuse him of anything, he said, except bringing souls to God.

The rector took St. Ignatius by the hand and led him into the hall. There, in front of everyone, Diego de Gouvea knelt at the feet of St. Ignatius. He was in tears, and he asked St. Ignatius to forgive him. He said St. Ignatius was truly a saint. The fault was his own, the rector said. He had given in to what other people pushed him to do, and to his own bad feelings.

In the years after that, no one attacked St. Ignatius the way they had at first. John Pena, the teacher who had asked for the flogging, made peace with St. Ignatius. From then on, John Pena thought of St. Ignatius as a man of God.