BARCELONA & TARRAGONA 23rd – 29th October 2013
Pilgrimage to be led by Fr Dominic & Fr Richard.
Salvio Huix i Miralpeix, was born on 22nd December 1877 in Santa Margarida de Vellors in the Diocese of Vic in Catalonia. He was ordained priest on 19th September 1903 and four years later entered the Congregation of the Oratory of Vic where for twenty years he lived the Oratorian life of prayer, teaching the Catholic faith and administering the sacraments. He was the Provost of Vic when in 1927 he was named Bishop of Ibiza. Translated to Lérida on 29th January 1935 he well known for his effective apostolic work until 21st July 1936 when Republican forces broke into the Episcopal palace and Mgr Miralpeix, reluctantly and in order to safeguard his associates, took refuge with friends.
Seeing the dangers to which his helpers were exposed, on the night of 23rd he left his hideout and presented himself to the police, revealing his true identity. He was imprisoned at once, together with other prisoners with whom he shared both sufferings and also the joy of secret prayers and Masses, right up to the last moving Holy Communion which proved to be their Viaticum.
At 4.30 on the morning of 5th August they were all of them taken to the local cemetery and shot. The bishop asked that he might be the last to be killed so as to give absolution and comfort to his companions in martyrdom. Before his arrest he entrusted his pectoral cross to a friend, asking him to take it to the Holy Father in Rome, for whom he was offering his life and to assure him of his loyalty.
Bishop Huix i Miralpeix is not the only Oratorian candidate for the altars from the same period. Fr Agustí Mas, a priest of the Barcelona Oratory was also shot in hatred of the Catholic faith during the Spanish Civil War.
He and another priest of the same Oratory, Fr Lluís María Valls, were also involved in the revival of Catalan art and culture at the end of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. They brought the liturgical revival in art and music pioneered by the French Benedictines at Solesmes into Spain, and developed a uniquely Catalan and Oratorian style in architecture and music.
Both priests in turn were the spiritual directors of the famous Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí who was a member of the Secular Oratory of Barcelona and whose cause for beatification has also been introduced.
Besides all this, Catalonia, and Barcelona in particular, is rich in art and architecture from all periods from the time of the Roman Empire to the age of modernism. Our visit will take in many examples of this rich heritage.
Our pilgrimage will begin with a visit to Barcelona where there are two Oratories, one from the 17th Century in the Old City and another dating from the 19th Century in Gracia. Gaudí, who was the architect of the famous Sagrada Familia Church, attended daily Mass in the Barcelona Oratory and was the model for the image of St Philip in the frescoes there. We will visit Gaudí’s house, now a museum, and we will, of course, visit his famous church. In November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass here in the presence of the King and Queen of Spain, consecrating the church and giving it the rank of a basilica.
There will be visits to Lérida and to the Oratory of Vic in honour of the newly beatified martyr. We will also go to other places of religious significance in Catalonia, the famous Benedictine monasteries of Poblet and Montserrat and to Manresa, nearby, where St Ignatius of Loyola lived in retreat and wrote his Spiritual Exercises which became the foundation document of the Society of Jesus.
Our pilgrimage will culminate with the Mass of Beatification in Tarragona Cathedral and with Masses of Thanksgiving to celebrate the first Beatified Oratorian Martyr.
PRICE = £699
For more information please contact:
Pax Travel Ltd, 57 – 59 Rochester Place, LONDON, NW1 9JU Tel: 020 7485 3003 Fax: 020 7485 3006
Email: info@paxtravel.co.uk Web: www.paxtravel.co.uk
In the light of the news that the Holy Father is to resign his office on the 28th February, this coming Saturday, the first Saturday of Lent, will be a special day of prayer for the Church. As usual there will be Mass at 10am and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament will begin at the end of Mass until Benediction at 6pm. Please come to spend some time before Our Lord and to pray for Pope Benedict and for his successor. 
