On the 12 of January 2019 a group of 23 Spanish pilgrims arrived in El Salvador to take part in the first stage of what would be a nine-day experience that would connect them with other youth from around the world.  Even though these young people came from different faith groups, different universities, and different cities from around Spain, they had been brought together by their common Ignatian spirituality and the MAG+S Pastoral Network. As they embarked on this adventure, they shared a common feeling that the motto of this MAG+S 2019, "Your word transforms", was a also a promise.

Yet, after a (relatively) short flight across the Atlantic, it was already time to break apart their new community. Mixing together with Colombian, Salvadoran, Korean, and Uruguayan pilgrims, the Spanish group spread out across El Salvador in search of an encounter with this country's beautiful culture and unique spirituality. Mª Victoria Paredes and Rocío Bellido remember “We divided and mixed (with other groups) to get to know the Salvadoran reality and history. When we say that we “got to know” (this Salvadoran reality), we really mean that we were ´welcomed` into the Salvadoran and the MAGIS communities. Through their testimonies, their lives, the struggles they shared and their desire to keep the spirit of San Óscar Romero alive... we could truly feel God throughout the experience and in our hearts”.

Friends in the Lord

This “MAGIS” spirit of welcome, openness, and faith continued when the Spanish pilgrims reunited in Panama.  They had an opportunity to introduce each other to the new “friends in the Lord” that they had made in El Salvador while also being welcomed, once again, into the homes of their host families around the city.  Over the next few days almost 1,000 Ignatian pilgrims from all over the world, including several delegations from Europe, shared in cultural and spiritual activities as well as continuing to explore the Ignatian spirituality that connected them as MAGIS youth. 

Fr. General

In his homily on the last day of MAGIS 2019, Father General Arturo Sosa S.J. thanked the pilgrims for opening themselves to the movements of this MAGIS spirit, that had invited them to leave their homes and travel to Panama, saying that openness “makes us creators and transformers because we participate in the emergence of something new.” 

In fact, across Europe, the spirit of MAGIS is continuing to inspire and reverberate and has inspired something new. In Spain, for instance, "MAG+S" has become a proposal for the faith life of our young people, a way of living their faith, inspired by Ignatian spirituality, in their daily life. The MAG+S Pastoral program includes one-time experiences and weekly faith groups and continues to invite our young people to be, as Pope Francis invited them on World Youth Day, “The 'influencers' Of God ' in a world.”

For Lucia Gómez-Lavín, this MAG+S program offered a way to stay connected to the experience she had in Central America and continue to explore her faith. She explains “I had spent the past year and a half studying outside of Spain and that meant that I become disconnected from the community I had in Madrid… one of the fruits that I am collecting from MAGIS and World Youth Day is the chance to reconnect with this community, I want to  get involved again.” When Lucia returned to Madrid, she found that community of Ignatian young people was waiting to welcome her, just as she was welcomed in El Salvador and Panama. The same spirit that moved her during MAGIS 2019 and WYD was moving in countless classmates back in Spain.

John Byrd and Almudena Moral Alcaraz, MAG+S Pastoral Office, Madrid, Spain