Ignatius and the Urban Apostolate Called to the Cities: The Spiritual Trajectories of the Early Church and Ignatius In his groundbreaking work, Landmarking: City, Church & Jesuit Urban Strategy (Loyola Press, 1997), Fr. Thomas Lucas, S.J., points out that “the history of the Christian tradition is inextricably linked to the history of urban society” (p. 2) – and this despite the fact that in his own earthly ministry, Jesus largely stuck to the more rural territory of Galilee. The definitive urbanization of Christianity began on the first Pentecost, when St. Peter’s inspired preaching converted large numbers of Jews and effectively established the first Christian community in Jerusalem. St. Paul, a Roman citizen, felt led after his own conversion to carry the Good News to the Gentiles; and this he did by preaching in the most important cities of the Mediterranean world: Antioch, Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, and Rome. When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century, he further integrated Christianity into the fabric of urban life by giving bishops and presbyters civic as well as religious authority, and by launching major building campaigns to erect Christian basilicas (an architectural form previously used for palaces, law courts, and other secular civic functions) in major cities throughout the Empire. Like Jesus, St. Ignatius Loyola had his own rural origins; he was born in a remote agricultural valley in the Basque region of northern Spain. Nevertheless, an old Latin saying about saints and their respective religious congregations declares that “Bernard loved the valleys, and Benedict loved the hills, Francis the towns, Ignatius the great cities.” Perhaps this is because, after his religious conversion at the age of 30, much of Ignatius’ life reads like an urban travelogue. Initially on fire with a crusader’s vision of ministering to “infidels” in Jerusalem, Ignatius gradually followed God’s promptings beyond Jerusalem to Barcelona, Alcalá, Salamanca, Paris, and Venice. He traveled to several of these cities to study at their great universities – a motivation which continues to attract large numbers of people to urban settings today. In particular, Ignatius’ seven years at the University of Paris (then the largest city in Europe) would connect him with his first international band of “proto-Jesuit” companions, who eventually pronounced private vows together in 1534. Moreover, the educational traditions and practices of Paris would prove seminal in shaping the Jesuit philosophy of education when the first college opened at Messina in Sicily in 1548. Following his vision at La Storta in 1537, where God promised “I will be favorable to you in Rome,” Ignatius adopted that great city as the permanent base of operations for his still embryonic Society of Jesus, which received papal approval in 1540. Thus did Ignatius’ own spiritual trajectory mirror that of the early Church itself – shifting focus gradually from the Holy City to the Eternal City. Back to top The Jesuit Urban Strategy As the Society of Jesus grew, cities played an instrumental role in shaping and carrying out its apostolic mission. The so-called “Jesuit urban strategy” was in play even before the official approbation of the order; Fr. Lucas quotes one of Ignatius’ first Jesuit companions, Simâo Rodrigues, as saying about the group in 1538: “they moved to another, larger house and a more convenient location [in Rome]; persuaded by Ignatius, they left their old residence, remote from the concourse and traffic of people, and moved to the central part of the city, which was seen as more appropriate for the ministries of the Society” (Lucas, p. 87). What was it, exactly, that made the bustling heart of the great cities “appropriate” for these ministries? For starters, urban centers cities afforded Ignatius and his Jesuits diverse and accessible audiences for teaching, preaching, spiritual conversation, and other ministries of the word. As the Society’s colleges for lay students began to multiply and thrive, cities afforded a ready clientele of middle class youth looking to become educated “Renaissance men” (and perhaps, in some cases, Jesuit priests and brothers!). Indeed, according to Ignatius’ lights, the suitability of any Jesuit work was to be discerned by whether or not it promoted “the greater service of God and the more universal good” (Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, no. 622). History would suggest that for Ignatius and his followers, ministries in urban settings – where they could profit from the concentration of people and resources – generally filled that bill. Fr. Lucas summarizes: “Ignatius found his vineyard not on the terraced slopes of the Pincio but at the busy corner of Piazza Alberti, in downtown locations all over Europe, and ultimately in crowded cities all over the globe. At crossroads in the heart of the vineyard, the word was to be proclaimed unremittingly, ‘for the greater glory of God and the more universal good’” (Lucas, p. 127). Back to top The Strategy in Maryland In 1634, when the English Jesuits arrived in what is now Maryland accompanying Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, they brought their “urban strategy” with them. Fr. Andrew White assisted with the laying out and constructing of the first capital, St. Mary’s City, according to a refined baroque urban plan. The city included a Jesuit church which was equal in size to the state house and strategically situated as its counterpoint: “church and state balanced against one another on the fulcrum of the town square” (Lucas, p. 37). A little more than two centuries later, when the American bishops, concerned with the rapid proliferation of non-Catholic sectarian colleges in the United States, were urging the Society of Jesus to establish schools in the major cities, one of the likely targets was Baltimore – “the great commercial centre of the South” and the “third city in the Union” (Nicholas Varga, Baltimore’s Loyola, Loyola’s Baltimore: 1851-1986, Maryland Historical Society, 1990, p. 44). “It would have been a practical blunder and a historic anomaly if a Jesuit college was not established in Baltimore. The importance of the city and its port, as well as the city’s historical associations with the Jesuit order [the first two bishops of America’s primatial see were Jesuits], cried out for a Jesuit school” (Varga, p. 4). After nearly a year of negotiations, Fr. John Early, S.J., Loyola’s founder and first president, leased two adjoining houses on Holliday Street; and the College opened on this site in September, 1852. “Nearby was the city’s high school for boys, only a door away was the famous Holliday Street Theater, and just around the corner was the birthplace of James Cardinal Gibbons” (Varga, p. 21). Already by 1853, however, this original site was proving cramped and inadequate; and Fr. Early set in motion the process of acquiring a larger site at the corner of Calvert and Madison Streets where the Jesuits could build both a school and a church. Classes moved to the new location in February, 1855, and the College remained there for nearly seven decades – just a stone’s throw from the Washington Monument, and what was arguably “ ‘the most fashionable, the most elegant, and probably the most expensive’ residential area in the city” (Varga, p. 45). Although the relocation of college classes to the new Evergreen campus in the fall of 1921 removed Jesuit higher education in Baltimore from the gritty heart of the city, the Jesuit parish of St. Ignatius Loyola remains alive and well in the 700 block of Calvert Street. A portion of the building which once housed the College there became home in 1993 to the St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, a Jesuit middle school conceived in the tradition of the Nativity schools. The Academy offers extensive scholarship aid, and it currently serves talented young men from low income families all over Baltimore city. The remainder of the building is another testimonial to the symbiotic relationship between the Jesuits and the city; in the mid 1970s, it became home to CENTERSTAGE, Baltimore’s leading resident professional theatre, after a dangerous arson fire destroyed the company’s former home on North Avenue. Costume shops now occupy former classrooms; a coffee shop is located in what was once the school chapel; and theatre patrons exit via historic wrought-iron staircases which served generations of school boys. Back to top The Work Continues In short, Jesuits – whether at Loyola in Baltimore or at the Gesù in Rome – are all about cities because they like to be where the action is. When your stated goal and vocation is to give “aid toward the salvation and perfection of the souls of [your] fellowmen” and women (General Examen, no. 3), it helps to be where the people are. Fr. Lucas sums it up this way: while his soul often soared, [Ignatius’] feet never left the ground. He knew that human beings are neither angels nor demons and must be addressed where they are, both metaphorically and physically, if their hearts are to be turned to God. For this reason, he became a master negotiator, master letter writer, master builder. He placed his companions in the midst of the City of Man so that they would be able to lead its citizens more easily toward the City of God. That is why he abandoned cloister, habit, and choir and struggled to build downtown residences, schools, social centers, and schools (Lucas, p. 164). All of that explains why, under the dynamic leadership of its 24th president, Rev. Brian Linnane, S.J., Loyola celebrates 2006-2007 as the “Year of the City” – because Baltimore remains a vital part of our history and our current reality, a place with many opportunities to “help souls,” a rich laboratory where students can “lead, learn, and serve in a diverse and changing world.” Back to top |
