There are certain places where you can feel God. One of these, for me, is Loyola. Stepping from the light and airy baroque basilica into the the dark and rather poky tower house encased in the facade, feels like stepping back into the Middle Ages. Right at the top is the room where Ignatius lay in bed after being injured by a cannon ball at the battle of Pamplona. This is the room where he found Jesus, this is the room where a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary set him off on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And you can feel it, there is nothing else to do but pray.

This pilgrimage is a journey. At the simplest level it is a journey from one coast to another, starting in the beautiful city of San Sebastián and finishing in Barcelona. But along the way we’ll visit the major sites of Ignatius’ conversion – a conversion that sparked so many others as Jesuits spread the faith all over the world. We’ll see his childhood home in Loyola, Pamplona where the cannonball shattered his leg, which sparked the whole journey in the first place, the caves of Manresa where he realised that despite his sin God loved him in a striking parallel with his contemporary Martin Luther, Monserrat where in front of the Madonna he lay down his sword and renounced his worldly life.

It is my hope that as we travel with Ignatius we too will be changed. The spiritual life he teaches is for everybody to encounter God in the way he did. Ignatius has profoundly changed my own journey, having completed the Spiritual Exercises twice, worked as a spiritual director and teacher on the Ignatian Spirituality Course, and in my work as a parish priest. I hope you will come and join us on this journey in September 2026.

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