Resacralizing the area around the Ignatian Well of Light in Manresa

The civic group Inspiració 2022 is preparing the celebration of the 5th centenary of the arrival of Ignatius of Loyola in the city of Manresa, Catalonia, and its illumination, by means of an interesting participatory process inspired by the cosmotheandric conception of R. Panikkar. This co-creation process should serve to provide content for a symposium that is scheduled to take place next year around the theme of the ‘inner transformation’ idea-force chosen by the future celebration.The dimension Earth has had the presentations of the philosopher Àngels Canadell, the archaeologist Eudald Carbonell and ended with the environmentalist Josep-Maria Mallarach, coordinator of Silene, the 10th of June.

Mallarach ended his presentation on ‘Resacralizing nature’, recalling the validity of the proposal that the Silene association resented 9 years ago to the Manresa City Council. The aim of the proposal is to create a large urban landscape park (28 ha) that would link La Cova (the Cave of St Ignatius, nowadays included in a complex of religious buildings) with the Pou de Llum. This park would enhance the landscape connection between La Cova, the historic vegetable gardens (6 ha) irrigated by the medieval Manresa canal, remnants of the landscape existing five centuries ago, and a new contemplative park (5 ha) around Pou de Llum, with views of Montserrat, La Cova and the cathedral.

Of all the Ignatian places in Manresa, there is only one that does not have a religious building to commemorate it: the Pou de Llum (Well of Light), which is highlighted through a discreet artistic intervention by Fernado Prats, with a memorial circular plaque of the illumination of Ignatius of Loyola, including  names of great mystics of all Spiritual Traditions, where a ritual evocative of the sacredness of land and water, conceived by the Jesuit Javier Melloni, was celebrated on the occasion of the Parliament of Religions in 2003.