Spirituality: Jesuit Devotion of Our Lady

St Ignatius’s heritage sparked his devotion to Our Lady, which intensified during his period of convalescence following the injury he received during the battle at Pamplona. Major events in his life occurred on feasts or at sites honouring the Virgin: his vigil before the Black Madonna of Montserrat on the eve of the Annunciation, 1522; his first vows at Montmartre, Paris, on the feast of the Assumption, 1534; his first Mass in St. Mary Major in Rome on Christmas, 1538. On Friday of Easter week, April 22, 1541, seven months after papal approval of the Society of Jesus and two weeks after Ignatius was elected its first general, he celebrated Mass with the first companions at Our Lady’s altar in the basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls in Rome, during which all pronounced their vows.

--from Sacred Space, the prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits.