Ignatian Pilgrims

Last month Fergus O’Donoghue SJ led a group of 34 Irish prilgrims to Spain. He writes:

“The pilgrimage is based on St. Ignatius’s Autobiography and is intended to bring pilgrims to the places in which the significant events in his life occurred. So we stayed at Loyola for four nights, which gave plenty of time for prayer in the house where he was born and where he experienced a spiritual reawakening many years later. We visited the buildings he would have known in the nearby town of Azpeitia and even arranged a group photograph outside his mother’s birthplace in Azcoitia (ignoring the bemused gazes of a large crowd of Basque-speaking teenagers). We went to the Franciscan shrine at Arantzazu, high in the mountains, where Ignatius made his first pilgrimage. Read more »

Short notices

• Starting on 1 September, 2008, there are a number of events to celebrate the golden jubilee of St Declan’s school, Northumberland Road – the secret Jesuit school! Keep in touch through St Declan’s website: stdeclan@iol.ie. Read about it in “Special Needs” in the October Sacred Heart Messenger.
• August saw the publication (by Four Courts Press) of a historical study by Francis Edwards, a British Jesuit: Title “The enigma of the Gunpowder Plot, 1605: the Third Solution.”
• US Jesuit Thomas Sweetser is the lead speaker at a Pastoral Conference on 29-30 September at the Marino Institute, Dublin 9. Details from bernie.martin@iecon.ie
• Recent Jesuit appointments: Fr Joe Dargan succeeds Micheál MacGreil as Chairman of the Pioneer Association, and Fr Paul Andrews succeeds PJ Farrell as Director of Jesuit Communications.

Brendan is gone, long live Brendan

You may wonder what has happened to Brendan McManus, the first and late editor of AMDG Express. After an intense immersion course in the Conemara Gaeltacht, putting a Galway blas on his Fermanagh Gaelic, he has settled down to coordinate pastoral care in Colaiste Iognaid in Galway, where he also teaches media studies in Transition Year, manages a soccer team and is Track Tutor (sic) to the school’s runners. Not much time for crosswords.