Start of Ignatian Year

Today, 20 May 2021, the Society of Jesus and the Ignatian family start the worldwide celebration of an Ignatian Year. We are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the cannonball injury St. Ignatius experienced while defending Pamplona. It was an important failure for him in the way he was imagining his future, full of courtly riches and worldly exploits. However, this failure turned out to be only apparent. It started a process of conversion, which led Ignatius to have bigger dreams, no longer centred on himself, but rather on God. It helped St. Ignatius to see all things new in Christ (the motto of the Ignatian Year), which is why the theme of this year is ‘conversion’.

See https://jesuit.org.au/the-commencement-of-the-ignatian-year/

Below is Fr Peter L’Estrange’s lecture for the commencement of the Ignatian Year: ‘The significance of that cannonball with the benefit of 500 years of hindsight’. 

If the above video does not load, please click the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5h92sR1PnU