¡Elizabeth en España!: A weekend with St. Ignatius

During my first few days here in Madrid, I had to make a decision about whether or not I wanted to go on a "Mission Trip" with SLU Madrid (the four year campus St. Louis University has here in Madrid). We weren't given much information about the weekend other than we would be going to the north of Spain to learn about St. Ignatius of Loyola. I decided to sign up along with the majority of the Marquette group. Everyone signed up because at that point in time no one liked the idea of being in Madrid alone. As we got closer to the trip and were given more information about it, it turned out that what they described as a "Mission Trip" was actually a Religious retreat.

Some of the Marquette group didn't quite know how to handle the idea of a Religious retreat, but I decided to take the weekend to get away from the busyness of the city and reflect on my time here in Spain, St. Ignatius, the Jesuit ideas and life in general. For those of you who don't know, St. Ignatius was the founder of the Society of Jesus, aka the Jesuits. Marquette is a Jesuit school and follows the beliefs and teachings of St. Ignatius.

We started the retreat off with an early morning, 5 hour bus ride up into Basque Country. Basque Country is a name for the part of northern Spain we were in. We were actually in a little town called Azpeitia, Pais Vasco. This is the town where the Castle of Loyola is, which is where St. Ignatius grew up. Basque Country is so gorgeous!! It felt like a completely different world than Madrid. Madrid is very desert like, while Basque Country is amid the mountains and full of green grass and beautiful views!!

When we got to Loyola we got all settled into a retreat house right next to the Castle of Loyola. We shared this retreat house with nuns, who were mostly in silence. This made for an interesting atmosphere. After lunch and a little time to explore the area, we got to go inside the Castle of Loyola, where St. Ignatius was born, grew up and returned to after he was injured in the Battle of Pamplona. This is also where he was converted from a life on non-belief to becoming a follower of Jesus. I found the tour of the house really interesting. To actually be standing inside the room that he was born in was really powerful. That night, after dinner, the whole group (SLU and MU) got together to bond. Up until that time it had been a little awkward trying to mix the two groups, but that soon changed. I really like all the SLU students who were on the retreat. I'm glad I met them and hope to see them again before we all leave Spain!!

On Saturday, we had breakfast and then walked over to the tiny town of Azpeitia. We got to see the hospital that Ignatius worked at, and the chapel that he lived in while working. This chapel was also where he started preaching his new found beliefs. On our walk back towards Loyola we stopped off at a beautiful church. The church was actually where Ignatius was baptized. After mass in one of the side chapels of the church, we headed back for lunch. That night, we got to go inside of the Basilica of Loyola. This basilica was one of the most beautiful basilicas I have ever seen. When we entered the basilica it was completely dark, but was soon lit up in rhythm with music!! As a special treat, the priest who was explaining the basilica to us, allowed us to climb through the back of the basilica to go up into the dome!! It was so amazing to look down on the church from the dome!

The next day after celebrating mass inside of the Chapel of the Conversion, which is the room that Ignatius spend all his time in after his surgery and also where he was converted to being a follower of Jesus, we set off on a 2 and half hour bus ride to Xavier. Once there, we got to tour the Castle of St. Xavier, another Jesuit saint. The castle was gorgeous from the outside, but the inside had all been redone into a museum, which was kind of disappointing. We then headed home to Madrid on another 5 hour (though it seemed like more) bus ride.

I had a great weekend learning about St. Ignatius, spending a little time reflecting on life away from the city, and meeting new friends!! It's awesome to be able to say that I have now been the the place that the beliefs Marquette follows started from!! Though I returned home with a worse cold than I left with, I'm now getting prepared for a five day trip to Granada, Malaga and Valencia, which are all cities in the south of Spain!!