On 24 May, the Society of Jesus in Italy celebrates the feast of ‘Our Lady of the Road’, a devotion so dear to Father Ignatius in his Roman years. In general, the image of the pilgrim has always given me a strange ‘spiritual joy’. Needless to say, for the Jesuits, ‘the pilgrim’ – par excellence – is Ignatius himself.<\/p>\n
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A few weeks ago, in the midst of a study time on Ignatian sources in the Cueva de Manresa, with the second-year novices from Spain and Portugal we retraced, actually backwards, the path Ignatius took from the sanctuary of Montserrat to the town where he would receive the most important spiritual illuminations of his life, Manresa. Walking towards Montserrat, I was thinking back to Ignatius’ journey, the physical one but above all the inner one of the thoughts he carried inside, the questions about the future, the remorse for a rather restless past.<\/p>\n
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Now, that I am here in Genoa, ‘in the middle of the road’ of everyday life, every now and then I find myself thinking back to that road I took, with gratitude and great joy, because I feel that that road was not just a ‘road’ but was and continues to be a recapitulation and an anticipation, in mystery, of every road travelled so far and of all the road to come.<\/p>\n
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XXIX
\nCaminante, son tus huellas
\nel camino, y nada m\u00e1s;
\ncaminante, no hay camino:
\nse hace camino al andar.
\nAl andar se hace camino,
\ny al volver la vista atr\u00e1s
\nse ve la senda que nunca
\nse ha de volver a pisar.
\nCaminante, no hay camino,
\nsino estelas en la mar.<\/p>\n
(A. Machado)<\/p>\n
Christian Lefta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"