Of Shattered Dreams and Moving On:

A Meditation on St. Ignatius Offering His Sword

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Caring for Our Communal Souls

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Humility and Obedience

Caring for Souls

In God's Time

In my father's house, there are many rooms.

St. Ignatius was a zealous and stubborn soldier. If I remember the story correctly, he refused to give up his watch at Pamplona inspite of the fact that the French had already surrounded his troops. What he got for his efforts was a cannonball that broke his leg and ended his dreams of ever excelling as a soldier.

I could only guess that St. Ignatius was terribly disappointed. Born of a noble family, he must have dreamt since childhood that he would grow up to be a much-decorated soldier.

The story of his transformation, of course, begins with that cannonball. Laying invalid, he looked for things to read and all he found were religious books (the bible?) including a book on the lives of saints. We fast forward our story a bit and we see Ignatius at Manresa (?) offering his sword to Mary. After St. Ignatius offers his sword, he leaves it at the foot of the statue of Mary.

Traditionally, we would interpret this as an offering of his life. While this may be true, I think there is more to it then that. I think that by offering his sword, St. Ignatius is offering his dreams of life as a soldier and leaving it behind for good.

The image of St. Ignatius offering his sword should lead us to reflect on certain things. What is the equivalent of the “cannonball” in our lives? What is the event that has shattered everything we thought would be but turned out not to be so? What are those moments in our lives when we said, “Akala ko… pero hindi pala”? If we have not yet moved on, we must also ask ourselves if we are ready to offer “our swords”, the remnants of those dreams of what might have been.

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