Impelling Spirit: Revisiting a Founding Experience: 1539, Iqnatius of Loyola and His Companions - Paperback

by Joseph F. Conwell (Author), Vincent T. O'Keefe (Foreword by)

A book about Jesuit origins, this text studies an early document ghost-written for Pope Paul III by one of the first Jesuits. This document--recently rediscovered in the Vatican archives and never-before-published--clearly reveals how the first Jesuits understood themselves and their order. It goes beyond commentary on a single document. It situates early Jesuit decisions in the ferment of the Reformation, bringing in key people--popes, cardinals, early Jesuits and other religious leaders, the saints and the strugglers.

Back Jacket

Impelling Spirit is a book about Jesuit spirituality as seen in its origins. As such it responds to the challenge of Vatican II that the appropriate renewal of religious life demands a return to the sources of Christian life and the spirit and aims of the founders of an institute. The instrument the author employs is a 1539 document Ignatius and his companions drafted for Pope Paul III as an apostolic letter addressed to themselves; this document - long neglected and largely unknown - clearly reveals how they understood themselves and their way of life. It demonstrates that the spirit and aims of the Society, though radical in 1539, were also deeply rooted in the Christian tradition.