St.Ignatius was born in 1491 at Loyola in Guipuzcoa. The family name of Ignatius was Inigo. After spending some time as a courtier, he turned to a military career. In 1521, while convalescing after a wound received at the siege of Pamplona, he suddenly conceived a burning desire to follow the footsteps of Christ. His spiritual experiences during his retreat at Manresa were to provide the core of his book `Spiritual Exercises’. In 1537, he was ordained as a Priest in Venice, and in the same year moved to Rome. There, in 1540, he founded the Society of Jesus, and in the following year he was elected its first Superior General. In every kind of apostolic work, he contributed greatly to the Catholic revival of the sixteenth century and to the renewal of the Church’s missionary activity. He died in Rome in 31 July, 1556, and was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. His feast is celebrated on 31 July every year to commemorate his death and sainthood. 

There are thousands of institutions all over the world named after this great saint as ‘Loyola’. Today there are about 14,000 Jesuits working in 96 countries.