Monument dedicated to Saint Ignatius of Loyola – Capuzzi
“He had been fighting for a long time when a cannonball hit him in the leg and broke it, breaking it all; and since the device had passed between his legs, the other was also battered ». With this cruel description of a torn, suffering, vulnerable Iñigo López, he opens up The Pilgrim’s Tale. Now Ignatius, the author begins his biography – written strictly in the third person – with the wounding, which occurred during the strenuous and vain defense of Pamplona from the attack of the French troops, on May 20, 1521. Half a thousand years later, it is the same image, carved in a block of dark bronze, to welcome contemporary pilgrims who, in the footsteps of that pilgrim, arrive in Loyola. Not the monument of the future founder of the Society of Jesus in ecstasy or intent on praying or in the heat of preaching.
At the entrance to the tower-house where he was born on 23 October 1491, on the outskirts of what is now Azpeitia, a town in the Basque Country between Bilbao and San Sebastían, there is the statue of fallen Iñigo-Ignazio, the work of the Catalan Joan Flotats. It’s not a casuality. Just as it is no coincidence that the Jesuits chose to proclaim, twelve months ago, for the five hundredth anniversary of the “wound of Pamplona”, the Ignatian year which, in reality, extends until next July 31, the day on which the Church celebrates the saint of Loyola. «Ignatius can meet God only when he finds himself vulnerable. The wound opens a breach in the certainties of the young knight, of the brilliant courtier, of the ambitious noble, from whom the Spirit looks out », explains Father John Dardis, Director of Communications of the Company and general councilor for Discernment and apostolic planning. “This triggers a long and tiring process of change, which takes place during the following months of convalescence in the Pamplona birthplace,” continues the priest, in perfect Italian that betrays his Irish origins.
To seal the change, another “gesture of vulnerability”. This time not suffered, like the cannonball, but choice: on the night between 24 and 25 March 1522, Ignatius goes to Montserrat, the historic Benedictine sanctuary set in the rock, not far from Barcelona. And there he places his sword at the foot of the statue of the Virgin. «He disarms himself, making himself vulnerable – Father Dardis underlines -. In the face of a wound, a defeat, a suffering, there are ways to react. One can abandon oneself to bitterness, despair, anger. Or it can be transformed into an opportunity to meet the most authentic part of oneself. The one where God speaks to us ». The latter was Ignatius’s choice, the beginning of that renewal of the heart that would lead him, twelve years later, to create the male religious order with the largest number of exponents: over 16 thousand, scattered over the five continents, including the current Pope. «Yes we are many. But this shouldn’t make us proud. How should we not be disturbed by the fact that a few decades ago there were many more. Vulnerability is the strength of the Company ».
“Vulnerability”, therefore, is the red thread of this Ignatian Year. The same plot that binds the lands in which the roots of Jesuit spirituality lie. “Places of vulnerability”, marked by the same dark bronze statue of the wounded Ignatius. Loyola, first of all: currently an offshoot of Azpeitia. There is the tower house, the center of spirituality and the sanctuary, both majestic and sober. There is no confused and festive shouting typical of worldwide pilgrimage centers: very few candles, no stalls and, barely, three small booths for souvenirs. Surrounded by a manicured mantle of grass, the complex is in itself an invitation to contemplation. Starting from the notes of the organ that often welcomes the faithful in the church with the notes composed by Ennio Morricone for the film Mission.
Pamplona, in Navarre, the city of the running of the bulls dear to Hemingway, is the place of vulnerability par excellence: on the sidewalk of the street that bears his name, a plaque reminds passers-by of the exact place where the cannonball tore Ignatius’s body. And finally, Manresa, in Catalonia, where the latter arrived after leaving the sword at Monserrat. The Pilgrim lived there for eleven months, taking care of the sick and dying. And, in a tiny cave from which, in the distance, the Benedictine monastery could be glimpsed, he wrote his masterpiece: the Spiritual Exercises. “It’s his legacy. A living legacy. Five hundred years later, the Exercises continue to help women and men meet Jesus “, explains Father Luis Magriña, director of the International Center for Ignatian Spirituality, of which the cave – or” Cova “in Catalan -, transformed into a chapel, is the heart. The complex dates back to the 17th century. “But it was in 2000 that, after a period of discernment, we decided to transform it into a house open to the entire People of God. People of all ages, backgrounds, orientations – adds Father Luis -. What unites them is research. The search for meaning. The search for their own interiority with which they have lost contact. The search for God and a more authentic relationship with Him. Many of them have distanced themselves from the faith, others have never encountered it. Before the pandemic, we had an average of 18,000 visitors a year. With Covid we have dropped to 15 thousand. Now the numbers are growing again. This time is thirsting for spirituality. And the Exercises propose an extraordinarily current way to placate it ».
It is not surprising, therefore, that Ignatius’s book is able to inspire contemporary narration with such force. Word of Marko Ivan Rupnik, Jesuit priest and artist, who wanted to “translate” it into eight very bright mosaics. One for each of the chapels of the church adjacent to the “Cova”. Mixing oriental iconography and modern taste, the mosaics outline an itinerary of the history of Salvation starting from the Exercises. But they are above all, as Rupnik himself said, “a meeting place”. Decomposed into tiles and brought together in drawings, the language of the Exercises speaks with extraordinary force to the human being of the 21st century. “After all, freedom, a pivotal value of contemporaneity, is the center of Ignatius’s spirituality – concludes Father Juan José Extebarria, vice-rector of the University of Deusto -. The Exercises are a path of liberation from “background noise”. To understand what our heart really desires. It is there, in our most authentic aspirations – in what we Christians call “vocation” – that the Spirit insinuates itself ».