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While studying in Paris, St Ignatius felt the need to find sponsors for his studies. He went to Flanders visiting Spanish merchants. This is one of the episodes he mentioned, telling his autobiography, at the end of his life, in the Story of the Pilgrim. 

During this Ignatian year St Ignatius is revisiting this European Low Countries region. One of the initiatives here is the creation of a theatre monologue: “Ignatius, the kneeling down of a knight”.  

The actor Kurt Defrancq convincingly plays the role of St Ignatius, as a man of this time, travelling with a simple suitcase all over Europe. The history is known, but the way Dries van den Akker wrote it down is filled with simple surprises. Finally, the actor preferred not to come alone, but accompanied by an excellent musician, Guido Desimpelaere, playing different instruments, like the 12-strings Portuguese guitar.  

The play starts and ends with the same solemn text, the Final Vows of Ignatius in the Society of Jesus. A much-appreciated element is the fact that Ignatius doesn’t tell the passage about learning to distinguish the spirits at the beginning, but as a summary key of the whole experience, at the very end of the piece. 

And so, Ignatius is revisiting the Low Countries, and came already along in Mechelen, Brussels, Antwerp, Turnhout and Amsterdam and his intention is to visit a lot more places and schools in Flanders and the Netherlands, AMDG. 

Philip Debruyne s.J. 

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