Hungarian challenge fulfilled.

“Run in peace!” – on the last Saturday of September these were the dismissal words of a special open air mass held in the hilly outskirts of Budapest. The occasion that the celebrant adapted the official text of the liturgy for was the III. Jesuit Run organized by the Hungarian province. In the present jubilee year, the theme of this community event was the life of Saint Ignatius. Thus halting at five stations on the route, the participants meditated on the various episodes of Ignatius, spiritually wandering with him from Loyola (“Worldly success”) to Pamplona (“Experiencing failure”), then reaching Manresa (“Conversion”), later sailing to Jerusalem (“To come close to Jesus”), and finally arriving at Paris (“To see all things new in Christ”).

The hundred-odd participants hit the road in three groups: fast runners, slow runners and walkers. At each stations Jesuits and their companions waited them with spiritual “munition” and tasks to fulfil while running or walking.

Besides organising their run in the Saint Ignatius Year, the Hungarian Jesuits invited all European Jesuits and friends of the Society to join the central event held in Budapest, at least in a spiritual way. There were several positive responses from Spain to Marosvásárhely/Targu Mures, a multi-ethnical city in Romania, and from Rome even to Toronto. In return for their greetings, at the end of the event, Bálint Nagy SJ, the vocational promoter of the Hungarian province and the participants sent the following message to them: