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This park is reserved for use by the
Jesuit community and those who lodge in the Spirituality
and Arrupe Center and the Youth Hostel.
Right from the start the Jesuits tried to obtain the grounds
adjoining the Holy House and the College. In 1948, these
grounds increased substantially, from 5 to 25 hectares,
with the purchase of two neighboring farms.
It now consists, first of all, of a vast
plain ground, a large triangle having the College
as its base, the path by the Urola River and the Erlepater
mountain as its sides, and the Youth Hostel as its apex.
VR2
On 6 November 1982, on a visit to Loyola, John
Paul II celebrated Mass for
a huge crowd at an altar built on the central staircase
of the back of the building. The wall that limited the old
garden was knocked down, the side of the Erlepater mountain
was leveled further, and many fruit-trees were felled. That
was one more step toward the loss of its former agricultural
character to eventually becomes a purely green expanse.
Presently it is becoming a garden.
On the very edge of the mountain side there is a statue
of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, made of wrought iron, that
was brought from Paris in 1895. Its pedestal is like the
one of the statue of St Ignatius in the center of the avenue
that joins Loyola with Azpeitia.
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