• The Jesuit Post's "Cam...
Well folks, the Journey Moments saints just keep on marchin' in. Last week the Catholic Church hailed St. James the Greater, the apostle who gave his name to the Camino de Santiago. This week holds the feast day of another, very special pilgrim -- St. Ignatius Loyola.
Ignatius is a regular around here not least because he founded the Society of Jesus. After all, so Society of Jesus means no Jesuits... and no Jesuits means no Jesuit Post. Ignatius is justifiably famous for all sorts of things, but one trait is especially appropriate for our Journey Moments series: he was a traveler, and his preferred carriage was his own two feet. Ignatius walked all over Spain. He walked between Spain and Paris several times over. He walked from Paris to Venice and then to Rome. And keep in mind that less than a year before his first long hike, the guy's legs were almost taken from him by a cannonball injury. He never got rid of the limp, but it didn't stop him from being a man on the move.
Perhaps the most famous of his wanderings is the one that marked the beginning of his self-styled incarnation as "the pilgrim". As Ignatius recovered from his injury in 1521, he made a choice that would change the course of his life forever: he decided to forego his pursuit of knightly bravado and to devote himself instead to the imitation of the saints. A mere eight months after he fell in battle, the young caballero left his royal inheritance behind and set out toward Barcelona, where he hoped to find passage to the Holy Land.
This first long journey, as you can imagine, has an iconic value for devotees of Ignatius. In it they see the firmness of his conversion, his youthful determination, and his best intentions put into action. In ways both literal and metaphorical, these were his first tender steps toward becoming the wise and prayerful soul that, many years later, directed the worldwide Society of Jesus from Rome.
This special stretch of road is known by current-day fans of Ignatius as the Camino Ignaciano, or the Ignatian Way. This week's pilgrim is a recent veteran of the Camino and a long-time admirer of our traveling saint. Indeed, Pau Vidal could be called a son of Ignatius -- he joined the Jesuits more than ten years ago and was ordained a priest last June. Like many candidates for priesthood, Pau wanted to devote some time to prayer and reflection as he came up to the big day. Unlike most, Pau chose to pray on the move, making an itinerant retreat along the same road that his founder took almost 500 years ago. In this week's post, Pau talks to us about his experiences on the Camino Ignaciano and how it shaped the final days of his path to priesthood.
Note: Pau is one of a growing number of Jesuits and laypeople who recognize the emblematic power of Ignatius' first journey and decide to retrace his steps. Some of them have found it so rewarding that they even set up a multilingual website to spread the word. The Camino is open to anyone, by the way; if you're looking for some out-of-doors enlightenment, click here for maps, travel tips, and lots of other information about El Camino Ignaciano!
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