Happy Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola! This striking statue stands in his bedroom in the family home at Loyola. His room is now called the "chapel of his conversion" because, through spiritual reading here, he converted to a holier life.

St. Ignatius, as many of you know, was a brave and illustrious soldier until he was severely wounded in a battle. He returned to his family home in Loyola, Spain, to recover. See it here:

"As Ignatius had a love for fiction, when he found himself out of danger he asked for some romances to pass away the time. In that house there was no book of the kind. They gave him, instead, 'The Life of Christ', by Rudolph, the Carthusian, and another book called the 'Flowers of the Saints', both in Spanish. By frequent reading of these books he began to get some love for spiritual things. This reading led his mind to meditate on holy things, yet sometimes it wandered to thoughts which he had been accustomed to dwell upon before...but...in the meantime the Divine Mercy was at work substituting for these thoughts others suggested by his recent readings. While perusing the life of Our Lord and the saints, he began to reflect, saying to himself: 'What if I should do what St. Francis did?' 'What if I should act like St. Dominic?'"

~ from the Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola, dictated in third person, 

finished in December, 1555.