As Ignatius lay recuperating on his sickbed at Loyola, he had resolved to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he could walk the roads and streets that Jesus had walked. Now, finally, that goal was in view. Ignatius left Manresa around the middle of February 1523; he had to be in Rome at Easter to obtain the pope’s permission for his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This was the ruling of Pope Clement V (1305–20) given at the Council of Vienne (1311–12) for all intending pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Ignatius walked from Manresa to Barcelona. In Barcelona, he met up again with Iñes Pascual, the lady whom he had earlier met on the road from Montserrat to Manresa. Iñes gave him a room in her house, near the harbour, where he waited for two or three weeks for a boat sailing to Italy. In Barcelona, Ignatius met another lady who was to feature prominently in his life, Isabel Roser, the wife of Juan Roser, a wealthy businessman. Quite by chance, Isabel spotted Ignatius sitting down with some children on the altar steps of a local church. Later, she would tell the young Jesuit, Pedro de Ribadeneira, that she saw Ignatius’s head “gleaming on all sides and emitting something like very bright rays.”24 Isabel became one of Ignatius’s most generous benefactors and would feature prominently in the early history of the Society of Jesus.
Ignatius was determined to put himself unreservedly in the hands of divine providence. Before boarding the boat that would take him to Italy, he left what little he had, five or six small coins, on a bench on the waterfront. The boat made the crossing to Gaeta in five days. On disembarking, Ignatius set out to walk the 120 kilometres to Rome. He reached the city on Palm Sunday, 19 March 1523. He spent Holy Week in Rome in prayer and begging alms. Just two days after his arrival, he received permission from the office of Pope Adrian VI (1522–23) to visit the Holy Land. The papal document giving him permission is preserved to this day in the Vatican archives and is made out to “Iñigo de Loyola, cleric of the diocese of Pamplona.”
Ignatius then left Rome to walk to Venice, a journey of about 600 kilometres. He lived by begging along the way and, on reaching Venice, slept in St. Mark’s Square. Eventually, he accepted the hospitality of a Spaniard, most likely one of the tolmazzi appointed annually to care for pilgrims and provide them with lodgings and other necessities for the voyage. This Spaniard even introduced Ignatius to the Doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti, who gave instructions that Ignatius should be given free passage on a state vessel taking the new Venetian governor to Cyprus.
Ignatius and his fellow passengers set sail on the Negrona and reached Cyprus on 14 August 1523, exactly a calendar month after leaving Venice. The pilgrims then journeyed on to Jaffa, arriving there on 31 August. They arrived in Jerusalem five days later, on 4 September. The following day, under the guidance of the Franciscans who had charge of Christian pilgrims, Ignatius did the round of the holy sites in the city.
All, however, did not go according to Ignatius’s plans. His initial intention had been to stay in Jerusalem in order to convert the Muslims, dying there for Christ if necessary. But tensions were high in that part of the world, as they often have been, and pilgrims to the holy sites were in danger of abduction or worse. The obligation of ransoming captured pilgrims fell on the Franciscans, who now ordered all Christian pilgrims to leave Jerusalem at once for their own safety. Ignatius, however, was adamant that he would stay. He would renounce his own plans only if he could be shown that he would be sinning by remaining in Jerusalem. It was then that the Franciscan Provincial, Fr. Marco de Salodio, said that he possessed papal bulls giving him the power to expel pilgrims or allow them to stay—and also the power to excommunicate those who did not obey him. This was enough for Ignatius. He would leave without further question or protest. However, before he left Jerusalem, under cover of darkness, he slipped out one last time to the Mount of Olives. He wanted to see, from the supposed imprints of Jesus’ feet on a stone, which way Jesus was facing at his ascension. For some reason, he wanted to imprint this image on his memory.