Saturday 4th Week of Lent
Knights of Columbus Incentive Trip
Manresa, Spain
March 21, 2026
I. Introduction
A. The way I see it, this incentive trip is also a pilgrimage.
For we find ourselves contemplating today’s Gospel in Manresa,
a place that was decisive for the spiritual formation of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Let us begin with the Gospel
and then try to read it in light of St. Ignatius experience in this place.
B. In the Gospel, Jesus identity and mission have been called into question.
During the Feast of Tabernacles commemorating the makeshift dwellings
that the Israelites made for themselves in the desert,
Jesus proclaimed himself to be wellspring of living water,
the one to come who was prophesied
when Moses brought forth water from the rock in the desert.
We do indeed acknowledge Jesus as the source of living water,
the superabundant graces that flow from the throne of God upon the Church,
making it fertile & fruitful & imparting to us divine life through the sacraments.
Only the long awaited Messiah is the source of this “living water”.
C. What Jesus said of himself set off an intense debate.
Some thought Jesus to be another prophet in a long line of prophets.
Others, specifically the guards, did not know who Jesus was
but acknowledged that ‘no one ever spoke the way this man did.’
Still others, namely, the Pharisees, were dead set against Jesus.
To them he was a fraud and a threat to their own standing and authority.
Jeremiah the prophet gives voice to how Jesus must have felt
as the leaders of the people denounced him
and hatched their plots against him.
The one who discerned his way through this thicket of opinion was Nicodemus,
the ever-discreet disciple of the Lord who sought him out at night.
In setting forth the argument
that Jesus ought to be given a hearing before he is rejected,
he is subtly trying to create a space, an opportunity
for Jesus to be accepted as Messiah and Lord. His efforts met with failure.
II. Ignatius at Manresa
A. The life of St. Ignatius Loyola is today’s Gospel magnified to the “Nth degree”!
For the spiritual biography of St. Ignatius of Loyola describes his journey
from casual acquaintance with Christ to complete self-surrender to him,
from earthly chivalry to quite an absolute spiritual chivalry.
Manresa was the school where the Lord taught Ignatius
who he is and how to love him absolutely.
Manresa is a place where God’s grace transformed Ignatius
into a master of the interior life –
a soul in which the living water of Christ flows and produces abundant fruit.
It is a place where the Lord is out to transform us
such that we will love him in quite an absolute way.
B. I can’t begin to describe all that happened to Ignatius in this place
but I can offer you cliffs notes, a summary of what the Lord did for him here.
Roughly speaking, there were three stages in Ignatius’ embrace of Christ:
first a period of relative calm and peace;
that was followed by a period of scrupulosity and inner turmoil;
and finally he was flooded with light from above.
Throughout this long and difficult journey,
Ignatius prayed hours on end, fasted in ways that defy our imagination,
and fully participated in the sacraments, especially Confession & the Eucharist.
C. Perhaps in the initial stage, Ignatius was like the guards in the Gospel
for in his conversion, Jesus spoke to Ignatius’ heart as no one ever had.
That led him to make a general confession of his sins at Monserrat
(where we will offer Mass on Monday) – and to a place of inner peace and joy.
It is that inner state of peace and joy he brought with him to Manresa,
coupled with a determination to do “more” (magis)
for the One whom he soul desired.
So he adopted the poverty of a pilgrim
and began to serve the needs of the sick,
not in the antiseptic atmosphere of a contemporary hospital
but in all the starkness that 16th century medical care could muster.
D. His initial peace gave way to a period of scrupulosity and inner turmoil.
The path to inner holiness was not a straight line upward
but a time when he felt by turns consolation and desolation,
warmth in prayer and complete dryness,
utter conviction followed by the severest of doubts,
confidence in God’s mercy followed by scruples
that his confession of sins had not been sufficiently complete.
It was especially in this difficult period of his life
that God taught Ignatius how to discern
which movements of the soul are true and authentic
as opposed to those that are from the evil one.
Finally, there was a great period of enlightenment,
when Ignatius mind and heart was flooded with love of Christ crucified,
and when he surrendered the whole of his existence to him –
thereby outpacing everyone represented in today’s Gospel.
III. Upshot for Us
A. What then does Ignatius teach us in the darkness of a cave
where he was so utterly enlightened? Let me suggest a few points:
B. First, let none of us (myself included) ever take the Lord for granted.
He is not merely a prophet, nor merely a man wiser than the rest of men,
but the Incarnate Son of God, the Word made flesh, the Crucified Lord,
whose truth we cannot fully fathom and whose love exceeds imagination.
To know him, even somewhat, brings joy and consolation.
C. But to know him more fully, we must be willing to undergo in our lives
times of trial and doubt, times that try our souls,
times that prompt us to rely, not on ourselves,
but on him who loves us and gave his life for us.
This happens only when we continue to pray when we don’t feel like it,
when go to Mass when it’s inconvenient, and when we hope against hope.
Only in this way to we discern what is going on in our souls
lest we cling to Christ out of self-love instead of acknowledging him ultimately
as our only hope and our only possession whom we love
because he is all good and deserving of all our love!
D. Finally, something wonderful will happen in our spiritual lives,
something we did not manufacture or earn for ourselves:
we, like Ignatius, will be flooded with light;
we, like Ignatius, will embrace Christ as Savior and Lord,
we, like Ignatius, will experience, maybe for the first time in our lives,
an interior freedom to follow Christ unreservedly,
the freedom to ask him, as did St. Ignatius:
What more may I do for you, whom I acknowledge as Lord and Savior?
What more may I do for others? What more might I do as your follower?
When we can ask such questions in freedom, without counting the cost,
we are indeed blessed with a joy nothing and no one can ever take from us!
St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!