A blessing and an ant

As I prepare to leave Spain tomorrow morning and travel back to the bustle of London and am very relaxed and feeling very blessed. I will post some photos and share a few more thoughts when I get home - sensibly I am not back in work until Monday - but there is one thing I thought I'd share while I was still in Santiago.

Along the Camino Frances (the route I walked and one of many Ways to Santiago) there are many churches which offer prayer services and blessings for pilgrims. The one that will stay with me most I think is that of an evening prayer service taken by a Franciscan monk - more on this later but if you have 5 minutes check outh this prayer which sums it all up.I did find myself thinking a lot about the idea of pilgrimage as a blessing (it certaily has been one for me) and how God, particularly through the incarnation is a pilgraming/journeying God. I ended up writting a three fold blessing in my head which is one of the things I will carry home with me and I thought I'd share it. It is, probably unsuprisingly, a bit Celtic in flavour.

Creator God, on the palm of whose hand we journey,

hold and guide you gently.

Incarnate God, whose earthly pilgrimage is our inspiration,

walk with you every step

Companion God, whose wisdom kindles our hearts,

give you strength and courage

And the blessing...

I may fiddle with this some more but I wanted to get it down.

The first section is inspiredby the old Irish prayer below.  I was sitting down eating some tinned asparagus on the way up to Fisterra and as I sat there I noticed that there was an ant wandering across my left palm. I was about to flick it off when the last line of this blessing 'May God hold you in the palm of His hand' came to mind. I found myself imagining myself as the ant wandering across the palm of God. It was quite a profound little moment. I gently put the ant down on the ground praying that God would never put me down. Then came the idea for the three fold blessing above.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Totals - just a bit of Fun

I was working this out on the road and thought I'd share it!

My pilgrimage from León to Santiago then to Finisterre and Muxía

Distance walked 458km or 275 miles over 18 days
Average walked per day 24km or 15 miles

This was achieved on:
72 shots of espresso
54 liters or 95 pints  of water
The juice of 72 oranges
7 (very generous) gin and tonics
2 liters of wine
4 liters of Fanta
A box of very nice gluten free biscuits
3 packs of corn thins
16 gluten free sausages
4 tins of white asparagus
2kg of trail mix (peanuts, dates, chocolate and raisins)
And a lot of very good food along the way including more egg and chips than usual!

Arriving

I am now back in Santiago after walking up to Fisterra and Muxía on the Jacobean trail. I will write more about this in another post but given my rather sulky last post about Santiago I thought I'd share some more thoughts on arrival and expectations.

Leaving Santiago last Monday morning I felt my spirits positively sore as I left the city behind and once again began to walk in the peaceful Galician countryside. Leaving the city felt and being back on the road, still moving still journeying on, felt right.

I walked on for three days, enjoying the walking, emptying my head and having a good sing o myself! Towards the end of the third day just before the decent into Cée I caught a glimpse of the sea as I rounded a corner. I was suddenly overwhelmed with joy and an enormous sense of wellbeing. I stopped and wept for joy. I was not expecting this reaction. I have seen such glorious views this pilgrimage, much of which have reminded me strongly of Rural Wales, but nothing as struck me so powerfully.

I realized later that this was the reaction I expected to have in Santiago, but didn't. I'm still not sure what is was about that sea view that caused me to react thus. I had done a lot of thinking and praying and processing since leaving Santiago and perhaps this suddenly different view of the world triggered a 'letting go'. Who knows.

Now back in the city I feel nothing of the angst I held onto a week ago. I am quite enjoying bouncing around this little city and getting hopelessly lost as my internal compass (that works so well in the countryside) goes to pot in the city. But I have journeyed on since last week, in body, mind and spirit. I have 'arrived' at two other destinations. Getting into Finisterre and Muxía were both surrounded by relief of arrival, a bit of getting lost (!)!, and the great joy of being where I was supposed to be.

I had 'great expectations' of Santiago and none of Fisterra or Muxía and certainly none of the Sea at Cée. Perhaps that was it. Or perhaps I was not ready at that point to stop and be in Santiago- I was still on the road emotionally and spiritually. Coming back into Santiago a second time, this time truly at the end of this journey, I am ready to just be here.

I've arrived and to prove it I'm here

A tired and soggy pilgrim I have arrived in Santiago De Compostela.
I arrived just in time for Mass in a totally packed cathedral and I must admit I was disappointed. The ancient portico (right) with the pillar of St James, where millions of pilgrims paying homage has worn a hand shaped grove in the Galician granite, was closed and covered in scaffolding. No homage today thank you.

The botafumeiro (left) is swung at the end of mass as a carnival attraction to the accompaniment of camera flashes and applause. It is not used as part of the liturgy and ritual of the mass.

As I went down to the crypt to pay my respects at St James´s relics I knelt down to pray and was promptly pushed out of the way so someone could take a photograph.


Grumpy and disappointed I found a place to stay and replenished my blood sugar levels - which had a notable affect on my mood!

Not to be discouraged I wandered back (in a torrential downpour that has lasted all day!) to the cathedral and sat in the chapel with the blessed sacrament. I´m not surprised that I was disappointed. I mean what did I expect? This pilgrimage was, and continues to be, about journeying not about destinations. To continue to journey, to learn, to explore, to be an adventurer on the journey of life. This is what it means to be a pilgrim. But the world is not full of pilgrims it is full of tourists who want instant gratification and value for money, whose idea of respectful silence is putting their phones on vibrate.

OK I'm still a bit grumpy! Going from the silent contemplation of the road to a big city full of people has unsettled me a little - doesn´t bode well for going back to London, eh?

I made it back to the tomb of St James, queued up and went to give the traditional embrace to the statue of St James with is in the centre of the cathedral above the altar. The 'traditional embrace´is basically giving the statue a hug from behind and kissing the brass shell. Photo's are banned here usually (praise be!) but they made an exception when the Pope came two years ago! (see photo right) I then went back to the crypt and prayed.

In his address at the cathedral at the time Benedict XVI said "To go on pilgrimage is not simply to visit a place to admire its treasures of nature, art or history. To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where He has revealed Himself, where His grace has shone with particular splendour and produced rich fruits of conversion and holiness among those who believe".

On this pilgrimage so far I have encountered God reveled in silence alone, in the beauty of a landscape, in conversations, in acts of kindness, in the stillness of places that have been prayed in for centuries, in doubt, in blisters, in tears, laughter and in languages I do not understand.

I continue my journey towards Finisterre and Muxia. I will return to Santiago next week with different eyes and hopefully a better mood!

A story on the way (Patagonia)

Last night at Rabanal Del Camino (after walking 36km) I was resting my very weary self eating sausage and tinned peaches in the kitchen of the Albergue and making conversation with the other pilgrims. We were intordocing ourselves and sharing where we were from - in my very stumbling Spanish I said I was from Wales. A lovely older lady called Maria from Argentina got very excited when I said this and (with great translation assistance from Rosa from Spain) told me about the Welsh settlement in Patagonia. I knew a lot of what she was telling me - although it was fabulous to hear it from her context - but she did tell me somthing I did not know about the Welsh settlers´ first encounter with the indeginous people of the land around. I´ve been thinking about this alot today and rather than try to recount the way Maria told the story (with great gusto but attention to detail - she was a school teacher after all) I have put together a fictionalised version of the story from her facts and my imagination.

Once you've read it you might guess it had a huge impact on me both emotionally and intelectually! I wrote this in my head in Welsh but for the sake of sharing here´s the translation! It is best read in a Welsh acent :)

Y Cyfarfod (The Meeting) 

Looking back you might say it was a daft thing to do.
 But it seemed so natural - we´re all just people right?

When I got on that boat with our Dai and our two little 'uns in Liverpool we had so much hope and idealism. Fed up to our back teeth of not being able to live our own way at home we left Wales, with alsorts coming in and  pushing us out. Our Dai heard about Michael D. Jones of Coleg y Bala and his plan to go out to Argentia where we could live as a Welsh people, in Welsh, following our own ways.So 200 odd of us got on the Mimosa on 28 July 1865 and a year later 153 of us got off. Nearly 50 souls were lost on the way including our youngest then, Myfanwy. Mind you, there was little to do on the boat too so 3 months before landing our Taliesin was born.

When we landed the lush green pastures we expected was not there. At all. It was hard land without no drinking water. Not a slacker among us we stared to try to work the land. We found some great caves and set up home there while we built our own houses. We started with building a chapel first though, of course!

Then came that day. We'd finished the chapel the week before and had started on working out how we might grow crops and we saw them coming. Men, women, children walking towards us. Dark skin, funny clothes. Different from us. I do't know why I wasn't scared, but like I said we´re all just people right? We'd left Wales because we felt pushed out. Well I'd be damned I was going to push anyone else from their place.

I had just been nursing our Taliesin so I was sat on a rock just away from the main group - closer to them. I got up, smiled and went to say hello - as you do. We couldn't understand each other of course, but there's a languge deeper than words, right? One of their women smiled at our Taliesin so I just handed him over to her. He was a lovely babe, it has to be said, and she just cooed over him. It didn't strike me that it was dangerous or daft or anything like that. We're all just people right? And everybody loves a baby!

After that we just got on. We had bread and butter and they had material and meat so we just started to trade and it went from there. It's not been easy on the land but we've better neighbours here. Now our eldest, Gwydion, is walking out with a Tehuelches girl. Ahhh if it works out they'll have beautiful babes.

Pilgrim Blessing

The two key concepts that undergird my faith are pilgrimage and community. it was, therefore, really important for me that my church community sent me off on my Pilgrimage with a blessing. The liturgy below was adapted from a French translation of the Latin original by Brother David Leo fsc. available from the Confraternity of St James.

Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Who made heaven and earth.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

O Lord whose word makes all things holy, bless we beseech you these emblems, rucksacks and boots to be used on this pilgrimage. May all those who carry them arrive safely at the shrine of St. James the Apostle, the objective of their journey. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

Presenting the Rucksacks

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, shoulder this rucksack which will help you during your pilgrimage. May the fatigue of carrying it be expiation for your sins, so that when you have been forgiven you may reach the shrine of St. James full of courage, and when your pilgrimage is over, return home full of joy. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

Presenting the shells and other emblems

Receive these shells and medal, as signs of your pilgrimage. With God’s grace may you behave as a true pilgrim throughout your entire journey and be able to reach your objective.

Amen

Blessing the Pilgrim

Lord Jesus Christ, you taught us through the Apostle St Paul that here below we have no lasting city and must always seek the heavenly city. Hear our prayers for this pilgrim we commission. May the Holy Spirit breathe grace into her heart; enliven her faith, strengthen her hope and feed the flame of her love. May she thus make her pilgrimage in the true spirit of penance, sacrifice and expiation. May the same spirit purify her mind from every evil thought, defend her heart and give her the constant help of his protection. You who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen

May the Lord always guide your steps and be your inseparable companion throughout your journey.

Amen

May our Lady of Roncesvalles grant you her motherly protection, defend you against all dangers of soul and body. Through her intercession may you arrive safely at the end of your pilgrimage.

Amen

May St Raphael the Archangel accompany you throughout your journey as he accompanied Tobias and ward off every contrary or troublesome incident.

Amen

And may almighty God bless you, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen

Go in the peace of Christ

Being the 'stranger'

'Pilgrim' and 'pilgrimage' are words that have carried a range of meanings over the centuries. The English term 'pilgrim' originally comes from the Latin word peregrinus (per, through + ager, field, country, land), which means a foreigner, a stranger, someone on a journey, or a temporary resident. It can describe a traveller making a brief journey to a particular place or someone settling for a short or long period in a foreign land. Peregrinatio was the state of being or living abroad.

These terms undergirded a central image of the Christian life. Christians were identified as temporary residents in this world whose true home was in heaven. They must therefore live and behave day by day according to the standards of their homeland as they journeyed through life. During the early centuries of the Church this was the primary understanding of the term.

In their book Resident Aliens, Hauerwas and Willemon recall this understanding of a Christian worldview. Exploring further how this understanding calls us to live in what they call a post-Christendom era.

Christian pilgrimage to places considered especially holy developed in the fourth century (see The Development of Christian Holy Places), peregrinus took on a further sense within Christian thought, describing a traveller with a particular religious goal. Peregrinatio was used of the journey undertaken.

Why pilgrimage? Why Spain?

Pilgrimage is an important part of spiritual life for many Christians; seeing life itself as a journey, coming from God and returning to God. A pilgrim seeks to separate themselves from the everyday concerns of the world, and to spend time in the presence of God as they travels to a place of special meaning. A pilgrimage is a symbol that is acted out.

The Church is sometimes described as a pilgrim people. Back in the Middle Ages pilgrimages were very popular. It was not like going on holiday. Pilgrimages often took years. Journeys were long and dangerous and many died en route. They usually travelled in groups and would stay in monasteries or hostels on the way. Pilgrims undertook these journeys to holy places because it was important for their faith. If they had committed sins they believed that by going on a pilgrimage they could show God how sorry they were.
According to tradition St. James the Greater, preached Christianity in Spain and on returning to Judea was put to death by order of Herod. His body was then miraculously translated to Iria Flavia in the northwest of Spain, and later to Compostela. This town, especially during the Middle Ages, became one of the most famous places of pilgrimage in the world. In the twelfth century the Order of Knights of St. James of Compostela was founded to protect pilgrims on the path.

Pilgrimage is about Journeying more than it is about the destination. The Celtic monks of old would set out on a pilgrimage with no known destination. Some say say this is how St Brendan discovered America! I am a Celt at heart but having a destination helps me wander, and so I will journey through Northern Spain on the path to Santiago.