Discernment on the Camino Primitivo

We are all now finally back from our Camino. Those of you who have been following along know that – in addition to the physical and mental challenges – the Camino is a powerful tool for discernment. I’ll get back to what we were discerning later, but I was again reminded that walking the Camino is truly a time and place to live out Saint Augustine’s maxim solvitur ambulando: “it is solved by walking”.

Some of this came through on the various blog posts, which however by their nature must be relatively brief. No apologies for the length of this post. There’s a lot to process.

On our fourth day walking, I prayed for some time at the quasi-ruined Monastery of Santa María La Real de Obona, and this prayer became a sort of running theme for my discernment on Camino:

O Lord, who sees all things
And knows all hearts,
Grant me the grace of clear vision 
To discern where you are leading me,
And to follow where you lead,
So that I might fulfill the task 
You have set for me and no other,
That I may serve your people 
And your Church
With the talents and skills
You have bestowed upon me.

Amen.

And although I didn’t record it in my blog, I developed a marching cadence that I would chant-recite as I walked over long or difficult terrain.

We’re walking the way
The way of the cross
The cross of Christ
Who died for our sins
And rose again
On the third day.

Not particularly profound, perhaps, but it certainly got me through what was the most physically demanding day of my life – the 26km climb and descent of the Hospitales route.

Throughout the Camino, there were small, beautiful moments of prayer and connection, as well as moments where the Lord thought perhaps I needed a more forceful reminder of living in the Kairos. And then, in the forests of Galicia, the Lord revealed the crux of the problem to me. I chronicled it as best I could in a post titled “Faith Musings on the Road to O Cádavo“. The pertinent excerpt:

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. … 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!

For some reason, the expression on the face of Santiago’s statue here made me smile. It doesn’t really come across in the photo, but at the time it looked to me as though he was slightly exasperated, patiently saying “get a move, on Pilgrim!”

Francine and I had a long discussion after that moment, and I think that’s where we realized where the Holy Spirit was calling us. For me, it all sort of culminated in the Cathedral of Santa María in Lugo. There was a sudden realization, which however took me some days to get all on paper.

It was prompted, or at least inspired by, a wonderful statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, but the swirling thoughts became concrete as I sat in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

According to the records of the Cathedral Chapter, there has been perpetual adoration here since the sixth century. It’s almost like the presence of Jesus has permeated into the very walls and fabric of the building now.

After sitting a while in prayer, I was struck by the continuity of the cathedral’s art and architecture, from the Romanesque, to the Gothic, to the Baroque. As I sat there, I began to think about the relative poverty of Catholic art and architecture in the current time, and its relation to the liturgical action.

Why do we insist on impoverishing the expression of our faith? Why do we shun the ancient and the beautiful? Why do we not celebrate the artistic heritage of the Church bestowed upon us by twenty centuries of artists and poets and saints – the art, the architecture, the sacred vestments, the music – and instead hide it under a bushel basket?

Two days later, on our sojurn to Melide, while trying the door of yet another locked country church, I found a four leaf clover. It appears that Saint Patrick was trying to get my attention, as he has ever since our sojourn in Boston (more on that here).

Following previous Caminos, I’ve revealed that the Lord sometimes needs to whack me upside the head because I don’t get subtle hints. This seems to definitely fall into that category.

So what had we brought with us to discern on the Camino this time? Some background is in order.

When Holy Rosary closed in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, Francine and I had already been in “parish transition” mode for more than two years, ever since the tragic death of Fr. Wagner. After that, we lost our parish church, then our parish entirely.

After several months of confusion, Archbishop Etienne invited all of Holy Rosary’s parishioners to join St. Ann. Francine and I did so, and we volunteered for various ministries and committees. I was on the stakeholders’ committees and on three transition subcommittees, one as chair. We collectively spent thousands of hours carefully crafting proposals for the new parish.

Suddenly I was on a council, a couple of commissions, and a committee, as well as trying to bootstrap an altar server program in a place where there are few young families at the English-speaking Masses. We were exhausted and burnt out, and until our Camino I didn’t realize just how exhausted we really were.

Almost none of our Holy Rosary families made the transition to the new parish – they have all gone elsewhere. The folks at St. Ann have been very welcoming to us, and many have shown real eagerness to accept the merging of all of these communities into one. Perhaps in time, we could forge the relationships that make a true parish family. Time, however, is also against us, or at least distance is.

For us to get to St. Ann, we drive past two other active Catholic parishes¹, as well as Holy Rosary. In the time it takes us to drive to St. Ann, I can almost walk to St. Patrick. If I have to take a bus, my transit time is more than an hour each way. Given my work schedule, daily Mass and most non-Sunday parish events are simply out of the question.

These are the concerns we took to the Lord on the Camino. On our pilgrimage, we spent quite a bit of time in prayer and discernment – trying to see where the Holy Spirit was calling us. As you will have noticed, it wasn’t easy.

It came down to this: our spiritual life has been consumed by four years worth of parish transitions. We seem further from the Lord than when we started this process. For our spiritual health, we need some stability, and we need something closer to home.

Therefore, it was with a heavy heart that Francine and I called Father Tuan to resign from all of our parish ministries and leadership roles, effective immediately. Bless him, I think he knew before we said anything, maybe even before we knew ourselves.

We plan to become parishioners at St. Patrick, the parish where I was baptized and where Francine and I were married.

We wish everyone at the new parish of Pope St. John XXIII the very best, and we will keep them in our daily prayers. We thank them for their love and support in the past year. May the Lord continue to bless them in all their endeavours!

On this Camino, I carried a stone from Holy Rosary to lay at the feet of the Apostle. When I say a “stone from Holy Rosary” I mean a fragment of a stone that somebody chucked through one of the stained glass windows there shortly after the parish was suppressed. I suppose that my intention was to lay down the anger, frustration, and sorrow that we had endured during this whole process.

But as I was doing it, sitting there in prayer at the Apostle’s tomb in Santiago Cathedral, I realized there was something else to it. It wasn’t just about laying down my own anger, frustration, and sorrow. It was also about forgiving those who – whether through design or accident – contributed to the source of this grief. Including myself.

Please pray for us as we make this change.

Originally published at The World is Quiet Here.

1. St. Leo and St. Joseph – and two more different parishes showing the liturgical diversity of the Church cannot be imagined.