Margaret Silf’s new book, Just Call Me López: Getting to the Heart of Ignatius Loyola (Loyola Press, Chicago, 2012), is a very handsome little hardcover piece of work, as befits its subject. The cover photo shows a warm and inviting corner of a contemporary living room, and on the wall a new portrait of Ignatius composing one of his close to 7,000 letters.
In just such a setting, Íñigo López de Loyola visits a woman named Rachel after chivalrously coming to her assistance when she is knocked off her bicycle by a passing car. When asked his name he replies, “Just call me López.”
Clearly, this is not just another biography, but a highly imaginative attempt to bring Ignatius forward from the past and into our own world. It reminds me of a favourite book, Van Loon’s Lives, by Willem Hendrik van Loon, in which the author claims to invite famous figures from the past to dine with him, one at a time, engaging each in captivating conversation.
Ms. Silf is writing something much more difficult since she shows us Ignatius not just once but at many different stages of his adu
lt life. Only on the third visit does he appear in the costume of a gentleman of the court, then, later, limping after recuperating from his wound at Pamplona, then as a poor pilgrim, and so on.
Sometimes he speaks as though with no knowledge of how his life will unfold (“I’ll never be able to keep this new life up for the rest of my days”), while later he uses Rachel’s laptop to access his own collected correspondence and call up some of his letters.
Sometimes Ignatius gives spiritual advice to Rachel, and occasionally she advises him using her knowledge of Ignatian spirituality. Perhaps all this seeming anachronism can be understood simply as López becoming gradually more at home in our technological world, as he and Rachel are drawn into a deeper and more trusting friendship.
Uncluttered by footnotes, the book concludes with suggestions for further reading, and the end pages give us an illustrated chronology of Ignatius’ life. It’s a beautiful way to introduce someone to Ignatius for the first time, and it has even turned up as a gift to several Jesuits in my community.