End of the road

 So we come to the end of our pilgrimage.  In Barcelona, the city where Ignatius spent several years in different stints.  As you'll see in the photos we have been joined here by a fifth pilgrim from Farm Street, Yasko Kurahachi, who has added to the already international feel of the group.  And we've spent a little time here visiting sites associated with Ignatius and returning to do a Camino 'Ignatian repetition' of  Montserrat and Manresa.  And many many thanks for such generous hospitality from the sisters who run the Ignatian Exercises Centre here.  

It was here in Barcelona Ignatius studied, prayed in the churches now visited by 21st century tourists from around the world, and also where he was given hospitality by Isobel Roser, who later would take 'vows' alongside the first Jesuits and would found the women's refuge of Santa Marta near the Church of the Gesu in Rome.  

So it's fitting to end here this Camino which aims to raise prayers, awareness and funds for Project Bakhita, which supplies much needed protection and help to 21st century victims of human trafficking.  

For those who have followed our blog many thanks indeed.  

There will be a presentation on the Camino at Farm Street in the next few months and reports in the Westminster Record diocesan newspaper and Oremus, Westminster Cathedral magazine, next month.  

We hope this blog has helped you connect with the land of Ignatius, his spirituality and how Jesuits and friends from our part of the world in our own time tick.  

AMDG

The happy pilgrims at La Cova

Fr Dominic and Fr Trieu at La Cova

Fr Trieu prepares to celebrate Mass at La Cova de San Ignacio

Monserrat for more walking! Repetition for Fr Trieu and Fr Dominic. Joined by Yasko (from Farm Street) and two new friends

Post camino in Barcelona: at the Santa Maria del Mar

Crossing the River Cardoner

We arrive in Manresa at last

Manresa in sight

One of nature's many wonders on the road

Still on the road to Manressa..

...and from another angle

On the road: from Monserrat to Manresa

Manresa and back to Our Lady

Manresa.  Our destination but in fact not quite as we continue this week to exercise 'Ignatian repetition'   By going back to Montserrat to sense, to 'gustar' our experience again.  Photos here of both.  

Manresa.  Where Ignatius spent several months composing the Spiritual Exercises.  Many of our readers will maybe have done the Exercises in several forms - everyday life, week of guided prayer, longer and shorter retreats - so maybe you share with us the special grace of being in the Cave here where he composed them - a fellow pilgrim who had, following his conversion and handing himself over to Christ at the foot of Our Lady of Montserrat - wanted to share his conversion experience with the world, guiding us through an experience-led process of reflection and prayer based on our being loved sinners, following Jesus in his human life and ministry in the Gospels, his passion and death, tomb, new life.  A wonderful gift for all.  Finding God in all things.  You could find out more on how to follow the Exercises now on www.jesuit.org.uk or book a retreat in daily life at www.mountstreet.info or residential at www.stbeunos.com

But for me at least I needed to think Manresa wasn't the end.  So back to Montserrat, to savour the source of the conversion again to her son.  So we went back to spend time before her yesterday.  An Ignatian repetition again.  Recognising we're never converted and need to go back to the source to be taught again.  Certainly I need to do that more often than I do.  And to be inspired by her beauty, the beauty of motherhood, the beauty of his creation, the beauty of silence, of stillness, and so to embrace again the form and shape of God's action in the world.  Always showing us the beauty of life.  The gift of creation.  The goodness inherent in his created order which has sovereignty over all the evil and suffering which can come our way.  And our most energetic day too, climbing the mountain and down again.  20 km mainly uphill at a very steep gradient.  

The conclusion of our pilgrimage is Barcelona, the great city, though.  Back to reality.  That's where we are.  More on that tomorrow.  As we connect with Ignatius here, his friend and for a time history tells us a lay 'member' of the first Jesuits.  And her own mission to trafficked women.  

Please do give to Project Bakhita if you can.  But money's not the only object here.  Please pray for the project and spread word about it at such a critical time in our country when we are trying to make the best response to a mass refugee crisis.  We need to show God's goodness and welcome to them so we avoid allowing human traffickers to take advantage of such vulnerable people.  So many, sadly, it's too late.  And that's why at this time Bakhita House is needed more than ever.  

Fr Trieu on the mountain

Outside a hermitage

View from above

La Pieta, the Abbey Church

The Black Madonna of Montserrat

Fr Trieu celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Black Madonna

The rain in Catalunya...

The Montserrat mountain passes are a challenge for walkers and bloggers alike.  No proper internet connection hence a pause in blogging the last 36 hours.  But here we are now at the great monastery of Montserrat where Ignatius gave himself in indifferent service to Christ after 3 days of prayer and sleepless nights.  We're spending just today here for a much needed quiet day, to pray and reflect on where we are on our life's journey but also to allow our bodies to recover a bit from walking 110 km up and down the hills.  Another different day, just as every day has been different.  Hot sun, woodlands, straight roads, winding roads, wind, thunder storm, and, defying Professor Higgins' dictum, rain, rain, driving rain in the mountains, making Spain in September more reminiscent of my Cumbrian childhood than What we imagine.  But we've got here.  And this is not exactly Spain - maybe not at all many who live here would say - it's beautiful Catalunya in all its varied landscape, leading us through verdant pastures, uphill, downhill, all vegetation (see the photos inspired by our botanical expert Fr Trieu and Marie's and Sandra's artistic and photographic skills), all weathers, motorways, pilons, trucks and truckstop cafes.  All things ordinary and extraordinary in God's creation.   

It's wonderful to be here in this place known as one of great spiritual presence.  And to have time to reflect on Ignatius' own journey to know the presence of God in all things, ordinary, transcendent, struggle, achievement, joy, peace.  And to honour Our Lady whom I think must have taught him so much about how to follow her son who follows her generosity in holding out his hand in an embrace of all God's creation, in hard times when we cannot respond as fully as we can to the angel's call, in the persevering every day, in the brighter moments of Magnificat clarity, even through cross, tomb and darkness.  

So, whoever is reading this, know our prayers in this holy place, and we ask you to join our prayers here for all those most in need, for migrants and refugees, those who have the responsibility for making decisions on our current crisis in Europe, for trafficked women and men.  

If you can give to Project Bakhita it will go to the initial development of this wonderful work of the Church in London through which trafficked women and men are brought to safety through the professional services of a dedicated team in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office.  But this campaign is about so much more than money.  It aims to spread awareness of the evil going on under our noses through the exploitation of new migrants in our country and to raise prayers.  

Our Lady of Montserrat, pray for us.  

Almost there: Cami dels Degotalls

The long and winding road

Day 5: Montserrat in sight

Motorways and rain!

Jesuit bark (juniper)

Into the woods

Day 4: setting off from Church of Santa Maria in Igualada