the Magazine for Fairfield college preparatory School • Winter 2010

An english teacher’s pilgrimage through europe,
following the steps of St. Ignatius loyola
12 Prep Today
Spanish journal:
The Swallows of javier
By Barry Wallace
In a small town outside of Pamplona called Javier, I
developed a case of traveler’s exhaustion one afternoon.
Never much of a group person, I decided I needed some
time to myself. I opted not to tour the castle of Francis
Xavier (were all Jesuits born in castles? I’ll have to
ask some of my Jesuit friends when I return). Instead, I sat in
the cool quiet of the basilica near the castle and collected my
thoughts. Exactly what does it mean to be a modern-day pilgrim,
and why had I taken this trip?
The early pilgrims thought the path to Javier would take
them to the end of the world. To this day, Javier remains a
remote and ruggedly beautiful place — a place where you don’t
feel silly thinking about God and wondering about the purpose
of your life. I looked up at the marble altar covered with sweetscented
lilies. Above the altar, a figure of the Jesuit saint and cofounder
stands gazing upward with his arms outstretched. He
holds a crucifix in his right hand; a gold halo rings his head. It
is the pose of sanctity I recognize from my Catholic school days.
But what does it mean to live spiritually today?
I sat for a long while in the church absorbing the coolness
and letting my own questions run freely from me. My back
stiffened in the wooden pew. I needed to lie down, but I didn’t
want to go back to my room. I left the church and followed a
walkway where I discovered a stone parapet overlooking miles
of hills and valleys. I was suddenly aware of standing at a great
height, but there wasn’t a place to lay my head. I leaned against
the church and rested my head on my hands. My eyes were
closed when I first heard the high-pitched sounds; I opened
them to see dozens of swallows and swifts weaving through the
air above me.
These small birds were flying into the towers of the basilica
and then soaring out over the stone parapet and high above the
fertile valley. They were dancing in the pure air, tumbling, turning
and flipping on their own course of evanescence and delight.
As so often happens to me, the voice of God speaks through
nature. In the hot silence of the afternoon, in this remote village,
I was hearing the sounds of the swallows and they filled
the air with wonder. Was this a religious experience, or a natural
one? Was it a moment of simple beauty or a moment of
eternal truth somehow revealed through creation? I didn’t care
what it was. All at once, history, the church, the saints, the bus
travel, the food and the tour places came together for me. The
experience transfixed me and I could only let go and let it run
its course.
As so often happens to me, the voice of God speaks through
nature. … I was hearing the sounds of the swallows and they
filled the air with wonder. Was this a religious experience, or
a natural one?
I got up and followed a wooded trail behind the church. The
path was blooming with flowers and fragrant herbs — wild valerian
and pink mallow. I heard the clear, unmistakable call of a
cuckoo in the woods. The upper path took me to a monastery
behind the cathedral. Two old priests were sitting in the garden
in the heat of the day. My Spanish isn’t very good, but it was
obvious they were discussing the state of the world. One of the
men was gesturing as if to indicate that things had gone to rack
and ruin. His friend nodded gently reminding him that nothing
really changes and that life is always good. I stood by the stone
wall listening to those men in the garden as if they were taking
parts of my own soul.
I left them to their conversation and walked to the edge of
the land. It dropped off suddenly into a steep ravine. One step
more and I would’ve been floating in space. We were so high up
that I could only see the crowns of the tall poplar trees from a
great distance. Beneath the trees I could see the sparkling river.
Patterned farm fields ran backward toward the foothills. In a
manner of speaking I, too, had come to the end of the world.
People have been making pilgrimages for thousands of
years for a myriad of reasons. Some come to find God;
some to heal a troubled soul; some to heal the body- and
some, no doubt, to escape from their life for a while and head
out on an interesting journey. I asked myself in the midst of
all this overwhelming beauty in the birthplaces of these heroic
Jesuits, “What do you feel?”
A pilgrim certainly is permitted such questions. In fact, the
journey itself follows the curve of a question. Where do we go
next? What will it be like? How will I fit there? What part of my
soul will be concealed or revealed to me? Our ultimate destination
was Rome, where Ignatius founded the Jesuit order, presided
over its expansion and growth, and lived out his last years.
This made me think of an old Irish poem I much admire. It
was written during a period of dangerous yet ardent pilgrimages,
much more difficult than our own plane rides and airconditioned
motor coaches.
Continued on page 13