St Ignatius of Loyola, walk with us!

Falling in love with St Ignatius of Loyola began with a demand to myself: I am a Jesuit; therefore, I should love Ignatius! But this did not happen in an instant. It took a process that started with knowing him from reading, studying, and praying his Autobiography as a novice and later on, as a tertian. It grew deeper in my studies of Ignatian Spirituality, and even deeper as I teach the Autobiography to the novices and give retreats and classes on the Spiritual Exercises, not to mention the insights from spiritual conversations and sharing with many people, both lay and religious, who, like me, walk with the pilgrim.

My love for our father and founder is sealed in a profound experience of Ignatius leading me more intimately not to him but gently and quietly to the Master, the Christ. This is how I would like to define my six weeks’ Ignatian Immersion Course in Manresa this summer: it was journeying (together with other companions) with the pilgrim Ignatius towards our Lord.

I arrived in Manresa on 24 April. The six-week course was held in the Ignatian Spirituality Center where the Cova Sant Ignasi is located. Standing on a hill overlooking the river Cardoner, the Center also presents a magnificent view of Monserrat from afar. In the programme were 28 of us with 16 different nationalities. More than half were Jesuits, and the rest were lay and religious men and women. Most of the participants were on their sabbatical year; the oldest was an 84-year-old religious sister, and the youngest was a laywoman in her late thirties.

The course included classes on Ignatius, the Autobiography (followed by an individually directed Ignatian Retreat), the dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises and the mysticism of Ignatius, the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, the first companions and friends–especially the women friends–of Ignatius and the Jesuit sources, and the Mission today as seen through the recent General Congregations and the Universal Apostolic Preferences. The daily classes were also filled with spaces for reflection, prayer, and spiritual conversations. In between the themes of the course, the group visited important Ignatian sites in Spain: Loyola, Xavier, Monserrat, and the Ignatian Barcelona. The format of the course felt to me like a shortened Tertianship programme with the added special grace of having as companions lay and religious sisters.

Their presence was one of the significant aspects of the course. And this was not unintentional. The program, in fact, was wisely planned to always have a composition of a third each of Jesuits, lay, and other religious. This composition not only made the program richer and more vibrant; it made real the true value and meaning of the gift of Ignatius – that the spirit of Ignatius is alive in the world, and that Ignatian Spirituality is not a monopoly of the Jesuits, but for anyone and everyone. Striking also was the deeper understanding of why the Autobiography, the Spiritual Exercises, and the Constitutions are foundational sources for us Jesuits and the Ignatian family, and of how the spirit of Ignatius permeates through these sources and all other Ignatian sources.

Truly, Ignatius is for everyone! However, Ignatius was and is never the centre of all these movements. It was, is, and will always be the Spirit of the Master. Despite his fame in Spain and all over the world, the devotion to Ignatius is not focused on him because it was never about him. It was always centred on Christ, for the greater glory of God. This was one concrete grace I received in the Ignatian Immersion programme: an even deeper love and desire for the Lord through my knowledge and desire to love Ignatius. St Ignatius of Loyola, walk with us!

Fr Lester Maramara SJ is a Filipino Jesuit missionary in Timor-Leste.