EXPLAINING A FEW NAMES

Manresa Retreat House itself and a number of sites at Manresa are named for important places in the life of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits.

The Montserrat Chapel

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In a small prayer chapel here, we have a full-size image of Our Lady of Montserrat. Before it lies a sword, symbolic of the life Ignatius gave up. For many of our retreatants it has also become a symbol of some element of their own lives that they choose to leave behind.

Manresa Retreat House

It was the intention of Ignatius after leaving Montserrat to go to the Holy Land “to help souls.” But the port of Barcelona from which he would have had to sail was plague-ridden, and he was not permitted to enter the city. He stayed instead for the next ten months at the small town of Manresa, about ten miles from Montserrat. It was probably called Minorisa under the Romans. He kept a record of his spiritual experiences there for the sake of helping others, and these notes grew into what is known today as The Spiritual Exercises, the basis of the Catholic retreat movement and of all kinds of retreats given here and at retreat houses around the world. For that reason we and many of those houses are named for this once small city that has since grown to a population of some 40,000.

The Cave Chapel

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La Storta

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