St. Ignatius Part One Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1491

Inigo de Loyola was born in 1491 in Azpeitia in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa in northern Spain. He was the youngest of thirteen children

Answer: Jesuit

Answer: False

He was much addicted to gambling, very contentious, and not above engaging in swordplay on occasion. On one occasion, Ignatius and his brother, plus some relatives ambushed at night some clerics who were members of the another family. Ignatius had to flee the town.

When finally brought to justice he claimed clerical immunity using the defense that he had received the tonsure as a boy, and was therefore exempt from civil prosecution. The defense was specious because Ignatius had for years gone about in the dress of a fighting man, wearing a coat of mail and breastplate, and carrying a sword and other sorts of arms -- certainly not the garb normally worn by a cleric.

Answer: His leg

A cannon ball struck Ignatius, wounding one leg and breaking the other. His leg was set but did not heal, so it was necessary to break it again and reset it, all without anesthesia. Ignatius grew worse and was finally told by the doctors that he should prepare for death. On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) he took an unexpected turn for the better.

The leg healed, but when it did the bone protruded below the knee and one leg was shorter than the other. This was unacceptable to Ignatius, who considered it a fate worse than death not to be able to wear the long, tight-fitting boots and hose of the courtier.

Therefore he ordered the doctors to saw off the offending knob of bone and lengthen the leg by systematic stretching. Again, all of this was done without anesthesia.

Answer: Jerusalem

1522 He had decided that he wanted to go to Jerusalem to live where our Lord had spent his life on earth.

Answer: Pope Adrian VI

He met Pope Adrian VI and requested permission to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Answer: Latin

By now he was 33 years old and determined to study for the priesthood. However, he was ignorant of Latin, a necessary preliminary to university studies in those days. So he started back to school studying Latin grammar with young boys in a school in Barcelona.

Answer: The Spanish Inquisition

His zeal got him into trouble, a problem that continued throughout his life. He would gather students and adults to explain the Gospels to them and teach them how to pray. His efforts attracted the attention of the Inquisition and he was thrown into jail for 42 days.

Answer: University of Paris

It was also in Paris that he began sharing a room with Francis Xavier and Peter Faber. He greatly influenced a few other fellow students (Xavier was the hardest nut to crack, interested as he was mainly in worldly success and honors), directing them all at one time or another for thirty, days in what we now call the Spiritual Exercises. Eventually six of them plus Ignatius decided to take vows of chastity and poverty and to go to the Holy Land. If going to the Holy Land became impossible, they would then go to Rome and place themselves at the disposal of the Pope for whatever he would want them to do

Answer: Chapel at La Storta

Ignatius, along with two of his companions, Peter Faber and James Lainez, decided to go to Rome and place themselves at the disposal of the Pope. It was a few miles outside of the city that Ignatius had the second most significant of his mystical experiences.

At a chapel at La Storta where they had stopped to pray, God the Father told Ignatius, 'I will be favorable to you in Rome' and that he would place him (Ignatius) with His Son.