Feast of the Fallen Knight

Ignatius of Loyola & cannonball moments

The story of Ignatius of Loyola often begins with his cannonball moment.

It’s a somewhat flippant way to refer to a war wound. But the phrasing isn’t wrong. Ignatius—a Basque soldier tasked with defending the castle at Pamplona, Spain against the French forces in 1521—was struck by a cannonball. One leg was shattered, the other gravely wounded. He never fully recovered. He spent the rest of his life with a limp.

But the reason the phrase cannonball moment has caught on is this: We all have instances in our own life stories that completely and utterly shake us up, turn us around, demand that we abandon an old paradigm for something new. It sometimes feels like we’ve been hit by a cannonball, so life-altering is the event that causes us to take stock of who we are and where we’re going. An injury, a bit of news, the birth or death of a loved one. Such things knock us down and force us to stand back up as someone new.

Or, at least, we’re given that opportunity. Ignatius, for one, could have gone back to his courtly life after his recovery. He could have counted himself lucky for having survived where so many others had perished and simply gone on with living.

But Ignatius did something different. He used his cannonball moment to reassess his priorities. He allowed the quiet whispering of God’s Holy Spirit to prod him in a new direction. For eleven months he lay in bed, restless. Slowly, slowly, he realized that what he sought was not a return to the life he had but rather the embrace of a life he had not yet dared imagine.

The soldier became a pilgrim became a mystic became a saint.

But there’s a detail in this story that is often overlooked or quickly passed by. Because Ignatius didn’t have to stare down that cannonball. The French had called for the Spanish to surrender. The outcome of the conflict was clear to all, and so the opportunity was given to save lives.

Ignatius’ pride would not allow it.

The future saint overruled his superior officer. He drew the support of his fellow soldiers. He spit in the face of that French offer of surrender. And he led his men to their deaths.

While he lay in bed, his legs slowly healing, his comrades lay dead upon the field of battle.

I wonder how often the faces of his fallen brothers-in-arms came to him during his recovery. The faces of their children, those who loved them. Certainly, the grief and guilt must have been overwhelming.

No one had to die.

And yet, that same whisper of the Holy Spirit came to Ignatius. The same God who would call him into the life of a pilgrim, a mystic, a saint. The same God who he would commit his life to, the same God to whom he would inspire others to commit theirs.

And I wonder about this God: a God who sees a man so deeply self-absorbed that he would sooner lead others to die than admit defeat. A God who no doubt mourned so many unnecessary deaths, so many lost opportunities. A God who cried at the very notion of bloodshed and conflict and fear.

I wonder about this God that said, Even here, we will dwell. Even here, we will call forth greatness. Even here, the spark of creation continues to burn. Even here, we delight.

Because the moral most easily missed of this cannonball moment is that the God of Ignatius never stops dreaming, never stops inviting, never stops drawing all of creation more deeply into the fullness of itself.

But we do. We write ourselves off as too far gone. As too broken and battered. As too much of a failure, too burdened by our past missteps.

Ignatius is a saint because he realized that this God of the universe still considered him beloved. And so he got up and about the work of healing and love and justice.

The paradigm that the cannonball moment shatters is the one we use to convince ourselves into believing we are not enough. And who would want to hold onto such a lie?

On July 31, in the Catholic tradition, we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Loyola. And there are indeed many things to celebrate: his writing the Spiritual Exercises, his founding of the Society of Jesus, his many contributions to the life of Christianity.

But I think at the end of it all, what we all might need a bit more of in our lives is permission to remember that we are beloved, that we are enough, and that no matter how many times we get knocked down, bruised and battered, our role in returning creation to itself continues.

So let’s give each other that chance. Happy Feast.  

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If you want to know more about integrating cannonball moments into your own life story, check out my book, “Cannonball Moments: Telling Your Story, Deepening Your Faith.”