Ignatius the Writer

St. Ignatius was a prolific writer.  I read somewhere that he wrote more letters than any other historically important personage of the sixteenth century.  This corpus cries out for selection and annotation, and that’s what Mark Mossa, SJ, has done in his new book Saint Ignatius Loyola: The Spiritual Writings.Mossa has done something especially useful.  He has arranged selections of Ignatius’s writing according to themes, and has added his own commentary.  The book provides a thorough introduction to Ignatian spirituality.  It’s also an excellent resource for people who want to see what Ignatius said about topics that interest them.

Example: did Ignatius have anything to say about repression of desires?  Yes he did, in a letter to Stefano Casenova, where said this (among many other things): “there are times when in order to sustain one’s strength over the long haul in God’s service, it is more meritorious to take some honest recreation for the senses than to repress them.”

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