Spirituality: Mary's Time

As we celebrate the principal feast to honor Mary and to usher in her octave, I will list several ways in which Mary was present to Ignatius of Loyola.

She was present to Ignatius when he left his former life behind him and made a vigil before the Black Madonna at the Montserrat monastery on the very of the feast of the Annunciation in 1522.

She was there when the first companions at Montmartre made their first vows on the feast of the Assumption in 1534. Jesuits profess their first vows near the feast of the Assumption .

Mary was present when he celebrated his first mass on Christmas Day in the church that honors her in Rome: St. Mary Major.

After the Society of Jesus received approval by Pope Paul IV, Ignatius and five companions made their consecrated vows today at Our Lady's Altar in St. Paul Outside-the-Walls on April 22nd, 1541.

In Rome, Ignatius used to pray using a medieval image of Our Lady of the Way (Madonna Della Strada). When the newly founded Society of Jesus built their first church, they did so on the grounds of the earlier chapel. The first church was called the Gesu. 

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