Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Yesterday, on the great feast of Christ the King, the Year of Faith drew to a close. Pope Benedict XVI established it as a time to re-dedicate ourselves to professing the faith, celebrating the faith, and witnessing to the faith. Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience […]
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Yesterday, the second Mass I attended had five people. Oh, the regularly-scheduled morning Mass for All Souls was packed to the rafters, but this was later. The rubrics in the Missal for All Souls specifically allow priests to celebrate up to three Masses that day – indeed the Missal has three separate sets of antiphons and prayers for the day. […]
» Read moreSantiago Apóstol Today is the feast of Saint James the Apostle, son of Zebedee and Salome of Bethsaida, brother of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist. One of the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). Santiago. On this day last year, I wrote about what we know of Saint James from scripture and tradition. That was before I had walked 500 […]
» Read more“The Incredulity of St Thomas” by Caravaggio God’s communications with us humans are often subtle. As the Prophet Elijah discovered, the Voice of God is often to be found in the whispering wind (1 Kings 19:11-13). Sometimes, however, God reaches out and whacks us upside the head, either physically or mentally. One such time in the history of the Church […]
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“The Incredulity of St Thomas” by Caravaggio God’s communications with us humans are often subtle. As the Prophet Elijah discovered, the Voice of God is often to be found in the whispering wind (1 Kings 19:11-13). Sometimes, however, God reaches out and whacks us upside the head, either physically or mentally. One such time in the history of the Church […]
» Read moreMy post-Camino reintegration proceeds slowly. Today, I got the first seven days of my Camino posted to Flickr and tagged. Day 8 is loaded as well, but I haven’t tagged the photos yet. LINK Enjoy! More to come as I am able.
» Read moreWell, we’re home at Pistachio House. Many thanks to Mel and J for getting us from the airport. Counting the bus, planes, and layovers, that was 36 hours of travel. I reckon I’ve done a 50-hour day today, so a real update will have to wait. Shower and my own bed. It feels good to be home.
» Read morePraise God, yesterday at about 3pm, we arrived in Santiago de Compostela. On the way into the city, we kept running into people we knew – people who had shared some portion of the walk with us – probably a dozen reunions before we even reached the Cathedral. Entering the plaza in front of the Cathedral was an experience like […]
» Read moreAn easy walking day today of only about 20 km. Once again, Francine has been powerwalking in the mornings and slowing down in the afternoons, which is fine as this is my method as well. I try to plan our lunch stop for about two-thirds or so of the way through the day’s distance. Before leaving Arzúa this morning, we […]
» Read moreThey say you meet the Devil three times on the Camino. While I cannot (yet) attest to the veracity of this tradition, I can verify that his temptations are to be found everywhere. Despite such temptation, yesterday we completed the long, long walk from Palas do Rey to Arzúa, aka “Cheesetown”, a distance of about 30 km in the pouring […]
» Read moreWe’ve made excellent progress the past two days through the undulating farm and forest lands of Galicia. We’ve certainly had our share of weird weather en route, from sudden hailstorms to today’s gale-force winds, but overall it’s been sunny and cool. In my experience so far, there are three basic kinds of people walking the Camino: pilgrims, tourists, and hikers. […]
» Read more27 April A beautiful, mystical walk in the forests of Galicia this morning. Unfortunately, thanks to a drunken Englishman with a penchant for snoring and shouting in his sleep, Francine got very little sleep last night. By the time we got to Sarria, she was done for the day. We had a last lunch with Eamon and bid him adieu […]
» Read more26 April We walked through the Galician mists today, to the magnificent monastery of Samos. While we were enjoying our second breakfast, who should come ’round the corner but my NZ buddy Eamon! Lunched in Triacastela and convinced him to accompany us to Samos. He was not disappointed. Galicia seems like home – almost a faerie-tale country – and the […]
» Read more25 April Today was a day of slow, grinding climbs, as we crossed our final mountain pass of the Camino. The town of O Ceibreiro is more or less at the top, and we arrived at the same time as two busloads of German tourists. The view was amazing. The village was the site of a eucharistic miracle in the […]
» Read more24 April Fun hiking morning with Smith and Terra, Santiago, and Stella and Diego (from Brazil). In Villafranca del Bierzo, we mailed home a box of souvenirs and various unneeded items. Lunch in Pereje with Smith and Terra, Ian from Glasgow (who we met walking into the village), and Anya from Nuremburg. Then, the heat set in. Progress slowed to […]
» Read more23 April On paper, this should have been our easiest day. Unfortunately, a heatwave hit. We arrived in Ponferrada in good shape and good time, but there we found the old Templar castle. We waited until it opened at 11, and we spent over an hour exploring both the castle and its collection of medieval manuscripts. Not to mention the […]
» Read more22 April 2013 One of the great traditions of the modern Camino is to leave a stone at Cruz de Ferro, an iron cross marking (more or less) the highest spot on the Camino route in Spain. This, we did today. In an earlier entry, I talked about my stone, and some of the meanings behind it. I put down […]
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