September 6, 2013
We will be walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage again this September and October. We walked it (from St. Jean Pied-de-Port in France to Santiago in Spain) in Spring 2010. Having skipped two sections totaling 70 miles due to physical ailments, we resolved to come back some day and do those sections that we missed. This has evolved into our doing almost the entire pilgrimage again. We will be starting in Pamplona this time, and expect to spend six weeks covering about 440 miles.
Within the last year, Anne retired, our daughters Karyn and Kristen got married (blessing us by adding Frank and Mark to our family), and St. Ignatius Retreat House (where Jeff worked as a staff associate for three years) closed, so doing the Camino seems like a great opportunity to reflect on this transitional time in our lives. We will be praying along the Way about that, and also about the many intentions people have asked us to carry along. When you leave your home and almost all you possess for six weeks, with just the essentials in your backpack, you begin to remember what is important in your life and what isn't. We need this reminder again!
Last time we posted updates on Facebook almost every day. This time we are doing this blog instead, as some of our friends and relatives are not on Facebook, and some who are on it don't necessarily want daily updates! So look at this blog whenever you feel like it. You can set it up to receive alerts whenever we add to it, if you like. We can't guarantee how faithful we'll be at writing a detailed travelogue or journal, but we hope at the very least (assuming wifi is available) to regularly post where we are and add a few photos.
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The Camino de Santiago de Compostela (the Way of St James)
is a collection of old pilgrimage routes which cover all Europe. They all have
Santiago de Compostela in north west Spain as their final destination. For more
than 1000 years pilgrims have been walking along the Camino de Santiago.
The pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostle James the Great
– Santiago in Spanish – developed into one of the most important Christian
pilgrimages in medieval times after the claimed discovery in the 9th century of
the apostle’s burial site in what later became Santiago de Compostela. According to legend, St James’ remains were
carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where they were buried on the
site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela.
Camino Francés is the most popular of the routes of the Way
of Saint James, the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in
Spain. It runs from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
on the French side of the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles on the Spanish side and then
another 780km on to Santiago de Compostela through the major cities of
Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos and Léon.
Today tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims and other
travellers set out each year from their front doorstep, or popular starting
points across Europe, to make their way to Santiago de Compostela. Most travel by foot, some by bicycle, and a
few travel as some of their medieval counterparts did, on horseback or by
donkey. In addition to people
undertaking a religious pilgrimage, there are many travelers and hikers who
walk the route for non-religious reasons: travel, sport, or simply the
challenge of weeks of walking in a foreign land. Also, many consider the experience a spiritual
adventure to remove themselves from the bustle of modern life. It acts as a retreat for many modern
"pilgrims".