St.Xavier's College Palayamkottai

The Founder of the Society of Jesus, St. IGNATIUS LOYOLA, born in 1491, in Loyola, Spain, the ancestral castle that was the family heritage. Ignatius was trained in arms and in the etiquette of court life. As he lay convalescing at Loyola, after being wounded at the siege of Pamplona he conceived a burning desire to follow Christ like the heroic saints of the past, whose lives he was given to read. He began this new life at the age of 31 by having recourse to severe penance and long hours of prayer at Manresa. He recorded these experiences in the book of Spiritual Exercises, which became the school of spirituality of every Jesuit after him. His age did not deter him from pursuing formal education from grammar school to college. He took his Master’s from Sorbonne University, Paris. At the same time, he won over a group of brilliant and like-minded university men (one of whom was St.Francis Xavier, the eponymous Patron of our college), moulded them with the Spiritual Exercises and welded them into a well-knit band which became the Society of Jesus in 1540. He died in Rome in 1556 after having guided the society as its first General for fifteen years. The members of the society of Jesus are popularly known as Jesuits, who render spiritual, educational, social and personal services to all sections of society as an integral part of the Catholic Church The three branches of palm leaves on the right side of the emblem signify that our institution is situated in Tirunelveli District. The ear of rice corn arched on the left side of the emblem represents Maruthanilam. The local symbol connected by a cross highlights the fact that ours is a Christian Institution. At the top of the cross, the college motto, Veritate Lumen et Vita (Life and Light through Truth)is inscribed. The shield at the front of the cross, has two divisions. On the right IHS., the Jesuit motto is inscribed. The squares on the left indicate the spiritual, moral, emotional, and intellectual development that education fosters in a person. The emblem thus means that St.Xavier’s College is a Jesuit institution of higher learning established in the Tirunelveli District for the all round development of its pupils. St.Xavier’s College, palayamkottai Tirunelvel