It is now a tradition that, in the spring of the second year, the novices, accompanied by Father Master and driving the white Ducato van, historic “flagship” of the Novitiate, go to Spain. It is a journey in the footsteps of the Pilgrim, as St. Ignatius used to define himself. So, between the 14th and the 21st of May, we went to Barcelona, Manresa and Montserrat. Why these places? It can be useful to briefly recall their importance in the life of St. Ignatius.

Marian shrine of Montserrat, 25th March 1522: on the eve of the Annunciation, Ignatius prayed before the image of Our Lady, left his sword at her feet, took off his costly garments and put on the pilgrim’s dress.

At daybreak, from the mountain of Montserrat, he descended to the town of Manresa, where he remained eleven months and where he completed his conversion: from knight of choleric temperament, in all his own master, to friend of the Lord, in all willing to serve Him in order to respond to His love. And precisely in Manresa he started writing the Spiritual Exercises, with the clear purpose of helping many others have his same salvific experience of personal encounter with God.

After the “retreat” in Manresa, the Pilgrim went to Barcelona, from where he left for the Holy Land and where, upon his return, he remained two years, living on alms, studying, accompanying people in spiritual life and giving the Spiritual Exercises. So it was in Barcelona that he started the apostolate of «helping souls», the main purpose of Ignatius and, in his footsteps, of all Jesuits.

And precisely Barcelona was the first stage of our journey as novices in the footsteps of the Pilgrim. There, together with the three Spanish novices, our second year “colleagues”, we attended a course on the Spiritual Diary of Ignatius. The course was given by Father Santi Thió, an eighty-year old Spanish Jesuit. The Father, former Novice Master, wonderfully guided us through the reading. The Diary consists of a series of private meditation notes, in which Ignatius recorded his daily inner motions over a period in which – it was the year 1544 and he already was Superior General of the Society – he was discerning the question of poverty, in particular whether to allow the churches of the Society to have rents or not.

Eventually, Ignatius chose the stricter form of poverty: the churches of the Society would have no rents. However, even more than the object of the choice – poverty in this case –, what really matters in the Diary is the rationale for the choice: as he teaches in the Exercises, Ignatius used to choose what would take him closer to God. Therefore, he chose the stricter poverty, feeling that this would guarantee greater intimacy with God: in this sense, the Diary is an extraordinary “register of intimacy” with God.

During the days in Barcelona, we also had the opportunity to visit the landmarks of the city. In particular, we spent a whole afternoon visiting the Sagrada Família, the masterpiece that was began, certainly under the influence of the Holy Spirit, by Antoni Gaudí and that will significantly be completed one hundred years after his death in 2016: a marvelous “catechesis carved in stone”, in the very heart of the city.

From Barcelona, as if following the way of Ignatius backwards, we went to Manresa and, from there, on the last day of our journey, on pilgrimage to Montserrat. Along the way, we talked and joked but, most of all, we prayed and reflected on some points related to those Ignatian places: Do I trust that God can directly communicate Himself to men and women and make everyone’s life bloom? How strong is my desire for God and how do I feed it? Am I sufficiently generous and open to God’s initiatives? Am I aware of all signs of God’s presence in the world (from nature to the people who were and are close to me)? What can I do and how can I better prepare myself for helping souls?

I could write much more about the week we spent in Spain, so beautiful and rich of experiences. But I have already written too much and I stop here, letting these questions resound, praying that they will accompany us in the next stages of our “pilgrimage” and that, with our answers, we will get closer and closer to God.