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We are to speak to
you about a shrine, but do not know whether you come as
a tourist
or a pilgrim.
In a certain sense, it does not really matter, because
as you visit the home of one of the men who has greatly
influenced history and the milieu in which he changed
the course of his life, the pilgrim hidden in you may
surface. At any rate we should like that your visit, real
or virtual, to Loyola, a Shrine-cum-Museum, may turn out
to be an enriching personal
experience. An experience
with no other limits than those that God and you may impose.
In other words, we should like for your
own benefit that, even if you begin this voyage into history
as a visitor or a curious tourist, you
may finish it converted into a pilgrim.
Going through one’s life is after all a kind of
pilgrimage.
And this does not
depend on the promoters of this Website about Loyola.
It depends on multiple human factors, life’s fleeting
nature, and its destiny.
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Whether we want it or not, all of us are wandering
pilgrims even if sometimes we
do not ask ourselves who we are, whence we come and whither
we go in our inevitable pilgrimage. From the Christian point
of view, every human being comes from God and walks towards
God.
.In order to help you peep into Iñigo
de Loyola’s experience here, we shall just show
you the Shrine that has grown around the old Tower-House
in which he was born in 1491. As we go along we shall
try to tell you the story
of the things that happened to him here in 1521, when
he was 30 and still “a licentious and vain soldier,”
“much given to feats of arms and women.”
And please note: the things that happened to him here
began to make Iñigo de Loyola a pilgrim;
at the end, the house of Loyola gave out to the roads
a pilgrim towards God.
If you wish, you may start your visit
to the Holy House and Shrine of Loyola.
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