Camino Primitivo: Faith Musings on the Road to O Cádavo

16 May 2022 Thom Camino Primitivo, Pilgrim Reports, Ruminations

It’s Galicia, and that means rain! Mostly of the cool, drizzly variety familiar to those of us living in the Pacific Northwest. Started the day early, and I completely failed to get breakfast or coffee. I broke the cardinal rule of the Camino Primitivo: stop in every café. And for this, I suffered.

Lovely quiet trails through the Galician forests this morning. In the stretches without tree cover, however, we were treated to the same bitter, icy wind of yesterday afternoon.

The trail itself was relatively easy, or at least not nearly so fatiguing as in past days, and we made good time. The forest was beautiful, even enchanting, and it reminded me very much of the forests near our home.

The Galician forests feel ancient, and they have clearly had human habitation for many thousands of years, as witnessed by the tumbledown stone walls covered in moss that lined parts of the path. Some had ancient trees growing right through them.

I am by temperament attracted to the beauty of ancient things and places. And it was walking in these forests where I suddenly and fully realized the drastic collapse of my spiritual life since the death of Father Wagner, the closing of Holy Rosary Church, and the scattering of our parish family.

My spiritual life is inexorably bound up to the sacred liturgy. This is where I find consolation and where I most fully and closely encounter Jesus. Instead of concentrating on that, I have been bound to endless committee meetings, making compromise decisions that even then are never implemented.

I find the entire concept of liturgical minimalism – that whole attitude of “what’s the least we can get away with?” – as an affront to the Lord. I realize that this puts me very much in the minority. I also realize that there can still be reverence in brevity. Everyone encounters the Lord in a different way, but the way of the majority is absolutely a desert wilderness to me. I long to return to the promised land.

Perhaps my faith is too simple, too dependent on sign and symbol. The absence of these things deprives me of my most intimate encounter with the Lord Jesus. And in this deprivation I find only darkness.

After ruminating on these thoughts for some time, I came out of the forest and happened upon a tiny little chapel dedicated to Santiago. It was a ramshackle affair, old and ill kept, but it was also an absolute balm to my soul. Saint James, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The next four or so kilometers was a long downslope that one of our guide books called “the knee buster“. The trail itself was mostly dirt and gravel road, and quite comfortable to walk on if you didn’t mind the angle. It was not even in the same league as our tortuous descent from the Hospitales a few days ago.

At the bottom of the hill, we came to the village of Paradavella, where we finally found our café con leche and a little breakfast of empanada at a place called Casa Meson.

After lunch, it was up and down over soft trails in and out of Galicia‘s magical forests.

There was one crazy steep long uphill slog this afternoon. I’d be out of breath and reach a curve that I thought for sure was the top, only to see it continue upwards around the corner. After the third or fourth time this happened, I resigned myself to climbing this hill until the end of my days.

When we did finally reach the top, it was at a village called A Lastra – or perhaps it should be called “at last“. We stopped in the local watering hole. I had a refreshing beverage, and Francine had an ice cream bar. We felt like we deserved it.

Weirdly, this is where my tracker app gave up the ghost, so unfortunately this is as far as today’s video map goes. Our total distance for today was about 25 km.

The day’s walk finished warm and breezy on a seemingly endless gravel road that wandered up and down hill and dale before suddenly depositing us in the middle of a very modern looking village.

Reflecting on what I have written today, it occurs to me that there is one other place where I feel very close to the Lord: the Camino, where every step is a prayer and every day a litany to the glory of His name.