Walking the Camino de Santiago
Compostela in hand, we head at last to the Cathedral. Here, we enter through the Holy Door. This particular door is open only in Jacobean Holy Years – those years where the Feast of Santiago falls on a Sunday. In 2016, however, Pope Francis had declared a special Jubilee Holy Year of Mercy. Holy Doors were opened in Cathedrals and […]
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When we walked in 2016, it was a jubilee year. Many of the larger (and sometimes not so large) churches had holy doors. The Basílica Nuestra Señora de la Encina was one of these, and it was one of the more obvious and well-marked ones of the whole Camino. Nicely done! Here Francine leads Rebecca and I through. Date: 23 […]
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The Catedral de Santa María de Astorga is built using several different native stones of very different colour. As you can see here, the southeast tower is built of red stone. The door here is the designated holy door in Astorga for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. A few places had them, but I believe that this is only the […]
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This is the entrance to Navarrete’s great Iglesia Nuestra de la Señora Asunción de María. The door to the left, like one in the Cathedral in Pamplona, was designated as a Holy Door for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. They were only the second set of Holy Doors we encountered on our Camino, and these were by far the best […]
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This main entrance of Pamplona’s Cathedral of Santa María la Real was designated as Holy Doors for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. You can see the banners on either side of the doors. We had come to the Cathedral this morning for Mass and to visit the Diocesan Museum. Although the outside of the Cathedral is solidly neo-classical, the interior […]
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Yesterday, amid a drenching rain, the Puerta Santa, or Holy Doors, of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela were closed. These doors are open only during the Jacobean Holy Year or a Jubilee Year declared by the Pope. So what is a Jacobean Holy Year? Simply, it’s any year when the Feast of Saint James, 25 July, occurs on a […]
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Those who have been following this blog for any length of time know of my fascination with liminal spaces: doors, gates, even windows. I found this one in Cacabelos an interesting study in the old and the new. The wiring on the outside reminds me a little of the wiring on the interior of my parish church, built in 1920. […]
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This morning on our last day in Santiago de Compostela we walked through the Holy Doors in the Cathedral and said our good-byes. We checked out of our AirBnB at noon and caught a cab to Santiago Airport early to take our mandated pre-flight COVID tests. To make a long, very stressful, and panicky story short, Callie tested positive. Both […]
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Just opposite the Holy Door we come at last to the steps leading down into the crypt where Saint James the Apostle – Santiago – is entombed. The stone steps are worn smooth and concave from the footsteps of generations of pilgrims. Day and night they file down in a seemingly unending line. The crypt itself lies under the high […]
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After a lunch that included a cup of goopy chocolate and some churros, we proceeded to the basilica. Enshrined within is an image of Virgin and Child that reportedly came from Jerusalem in the fifth century and is now honoured throughout El Bierzo. It was hidden during the Islamic conquest – so well, in fact, that it was lost for […]
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