Join our Erromeria celebration!
Erromeria is Basque for a festive pilgrimage. Ignatius came from the Basque region of Spain and we want to celebrate and offer the gifts of Ignatius’ life and spirituality during this Ignatian Year.
The Ignatian Year is a celebration to commemorate 500 years since the conversion of St Ignatius in 2021 and 400 years since the canonisation of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier in 2022. The year will open on May 20, 2021, the anniversary of Ignatius’ injury at Pamplona and conclude on July 31, 2022, the feast of St Ignatius.
We will be offering an online series of stories about key stages and turning points of Ignatius’ life, and the relevance of this to our lives, places, and times, including questions for you to reflect upon for your own life.
It is with thanks to the voices of JISA – Spiritual Directors and Givers of the First Spiritual Exercises who have come together to create contributions for our Ignatian Year celebrations!
We invite to click on the links below as they are revealed each month in this Ignatian Year.
The imperatives of walking: start again, faster, turn here, stop, go back, keep moving, whittle the heart into prayer and love.
Ignatius of Loyola
A small Spaniard, slightly lame, with bright eyes.
His eyes transmitted such joy that, when receiving someone, “he seemed to enclose him into his soul.”
For pilgrims (always limping), strolling, walking, running are exercises in love, in prayer.
Erromeria Pilgrimage Map
Monthly Erromeria Pilgrimage Blog
Coming August 2021
Casa Torre Loyola
The manor house, Loyola, lies in a beautifully fertile valley between two towns [Azcoitia to the north and Azpeitia to the south] in the Basque country of northern Spain. Mount izarraitz, a deceptively imposing mountain, […]
Disconnected – Young Ignatius at Loyola
Loyola. This is where the story of Ignatius’ life begins, and where our Erromeria pilgrimage begins, charting some key chapters in his life. Inigo was born in Castle Loyola in the Basque country of northern Spain, into […]
Midrash as a Creative Hermeneutic for the Festive Pilgrimage with Ignatius
Our world is in great need of healing. As we join Ignatius on this pilgrimage, which one of joy, celebration and healing, we are also joining our heart with his, in our con-joined desire for […]
Coming September 2021
Pamplona
PAMPLONA by Andrew Bullen SJ Wherever Pamplona is: you mistake the enemy and over trust your own boldness, flourish an outdated flag for the last time and with style: you’re on the defensive. The […]
A Raging Bull, Cannonball Fire and a Nobleman
Annmaree Sutton’s poem, A Raging Bull, Cannonball Fire and A Noble Man, was born out of her work in Ignatian Spirituality and the Corpus Christi Community in Greenvale. The work of Corpus Christi reaches some of […]
A Cannonball Moment
Jim Manney from IgnatianSpirituaity.com reflects on his cannonball moment at the Loyola Chapel of Conversion. Jim, who was previously an editor at Loyola Press, had a profound experience in the Chapel which resulted in his […]
Coming October 2021
Ignatius at La Storta, a guided Imaginative Contemplation
We invite you to pray with Ignatius and his two companions, Diego Lainez and Peter Faber at La Storta on their journey to Rome. With a guided contemplation in the Ignatian tradition, you will be […]
Childhood, La Storta and companions of Jesus
In an essay I once wrote when training to be a director in the Ignatian tradition I said that I see the Exercises as reflecting the existential journey every soul must make to move towards […]
La Storta – “Place us with Your Son”
Eight miles more before nightfall to reach the holy city; weary, footsore, he stops here at La Storta, rests, and prays. Eight miles, and the journey’s done. He begs the Lady yet again To […]
Coming November 2021
Manresa poem
WHY MOVE AWAY from lofty Monserrat and the holy places? To here, which is nowhere much, just a place made of mud-dust: the cave and the river and the bridge, the cathedral a dark slab; […]
Cardoner poem
Now I am given to see ripples and current of this river cast water lights which interlace into a diamond and flash white fire. From white light streams white light To suffuse all creation with […]
St Ignatius in Manresa
Ignatius: A View from Manresa Ignatius spent some months in 1522 praying in a cave on the edge of Manresa and composing the spiritual exercises in his notebook drawing from his experiences. The cave overlooks […]
Coming December 2021
From a lady’s man to being Our Lady’s man
For Ignatius at Montserrat, the Blessed Mary was a caring mother who would bring him closer to her Son, Jesus. Maurus Irsan Rimawal SJ from Myanmar reflects on Montserrat. Montserrat is a mountain 20 miles […]
What do you want from me God?
On the cusp of a significant spiritual insight.’ Laetitia Puthenpadath reflects on Ignatius’ transformative experience at the foot of the black Madonna in Monserrat. ‘He was like a roughly hewn and ill-shaped piece of marble […]
‘The Way’ to Jesus – a ceramic story
Two beautiful ceramic sculptures of Ignatius with Mary – as a young boy and at Monserrat. Read what inspired Margaret Strobl, Giver of the First Spiritual Exercises, and sculptural ceramicist, to create these pieces. I’ve […]
Coming February 2022
Ignatius, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land: “The whole world will be my Jerusalem”
Ignatius, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land: “The whole world will be my Jerusalem” It is 1521. Iñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola lies on his bed recuperating from the fractures he suffered when he was […]
Jerusalem, Andrew Bullen SJ
JERUSALEM, A POEM I Imagine Ignatius there: he follows his Master’s path. Towers, walls, a sudden dome: everywhere is holy. The golden muffled sound of bells: he lives inside the stories. Grace and footsteps: his […]
Welcome to Jerusalem
Welcome to Jerusalem The Old City of Jerusalem has been a centre of culture, religion and history for thousands of years, from the time of the Judean kings and the Roman era through the Islamic […]
Coming March 2022
Tracing Ignatius’ footsteps in Paris: a personal reflection
Ignatius of Loyola arrives in Paris on the 2nd of February 1528, alone and on foot. I came to Paris on 27 June 2019, by aeroplane. A French Jesuit collected me by car. We drove […]
Ignatian Spirituality expressed in Jesuit Education
Ignatian Spirituality expressed in Jesuit Education The charisma of Ignatius of Loyola which I found at Xavier College, Kostka Hall in Brighton Victoria, captured my imagination and inspired me to continue my professional life as […]
“Friends in the Lord” – a meeting in Paris
I have often wondered what those two young University of Paris students, Peter Faber, and Francis Xavier, were thinking when this much older man Inigo limped into their room at the College of Sainte-Barbe in […]
Coming April 2022
Venice and Corpus Christi Community
What have I done for Christ? What do I do for Christ? What will I do for Christ? Ignatius stretches into the cool, salty night breeze. Venice, after midnight and very dark, but he can […]
Venice not Jerusalem
Ignatius and his fellow companions harboured an intense desire to make that journey of a life-time – to be pilgrims to Jerusalem – the Holy City. After a period of prolonged study, they were ready […]
Stepping into his journey, tethering into his God
Listen to this reflection of Ignatius interior movements in Venice and a prayer exercise by Spiritual Director Caroline Coggins. https://jisa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ignatius-venice-.m4a
Coming May 2022
Ignatius at La Storta, a guided Imaginative Contemplation
We invite you to pray with Ignatius and his two companions, Diego Lainez and Peter Faber at La Storta on their journey to Rome. With a guided contemplation in the Ignatian tradition, you will be […]
Childhood, La Storta and companions of Jesus
In an essay I once wrote when training to be a director in the Ignatian tradition I said that I see the Exercises as reflecting the existential journey every soul must make to move towards […]
La Storta – “Place us with Your Son”
Eight miles more before nightfall to reach the holy city; weary, footsore, he stops here at La Storta, rests, and prays. Eight miles, and the journey’s done. He begs the Lady yet again To […]
Coming June 2022
