Category: Camino

Old Love

She walked into the chapel, hunched over and slowly walking.  Shocked, I saw her bow a little deeper before entering the pew after her husband.  For most of the Mass she remained seated, but she would stand briefly for different parts before sitting back down again.

They were elderly and found it difficult to move but they were at an evening Mass on a weekday.  I felt protective of the lady, making certain the pew didn’t move as she slowly lowered herself down again.  It was a witness of authentic love, of Jesus and of each other.

I found myself praying that someday, that would be me.  Maybe not in Leon, Spain but somewhere in the world.  That I would be able to grow old with someone, that we would make it to Mass even when standing for very long proved difficult.  Gnarled hands, stooping backs, weak eyes, fairness of youth replaced with the antiquity of age, all of it points to the beauty of love that endures, that holds fast to “I do” despite trials and hardships.

I was reminded of this Spanish couple after Mass today.  Walking over to the adoration chapel, I was forced to slow my steps as I followed an elderly couple.  He wore a cute hat and held his wife’s hand as they ambled along.  It was an image of love that encouraged me.  It left me wanting what they have, even though I have no idea who they are.

Young love is appealing in its own way–in the passion, in the ideals, in the dreams, in the hopes of forever, in the rampage of emotions, and the newness of adventure.  But old love is reminiscent of iron tempered by fire–it is calmer, it endures, it remains steadfast, and it looks beyond the superficial.

I just love love at every stage, I guess.  Just be the lay witness the Lord desires you to be.

Why are you walking the Camino?

“Why are you walking the Camino?”

After hearing someone’s name and country of origin, this is the next general question to ask.  Yet it is a very personal question to be asked so early on.  I never quite knew how deep to go or even how to phrase my reasons entirely.  So when people asked I generally told how it worked out for me to come this summer rather than my deeper reasons for walking the Camino.  If the question seemed to be asked too flippantly, then I didn’t want to bare my soul to someone I hardly knew.  I am a melancholic, after all, and the perfect words never quite seemed to find themselves on my tongue at the appropriate moment.

Despite my reservations, some people were remarkably open about their reasons.  One young man I met said that he was walking for redemption.  I never asked him what he meant by that but it sounded deep.  A young woman was looking for her heart.  An older woman said she was walking for forgiveness–to forgive herself or nature…something.  One man was walking out of thanksgiving.  Others were looking forward to a new stage in their lives or hoping to initiate a change.

I walked the Camino for Love.  Naturally, part of me hoped to find “the one” on my walk, implausible though it might be.  What I really wanted, though, was to find a deeper love with Jesus.  While the Camino is traditionally a pilgrimage to a holy site, modern Camino walkers are typically not walking for religious reasons.  They are searching and seeking after something but they don’t fit into neat religious groups.  Perhaps I underestimated my fellow walkers, but I didn’t foresee a very interested response if I said I was walking across Spain so that I could fall deeper in love with the Lord.

While part of me understands the different reasons to walk the Camino, I often found myself thinking that I knew of no other sufficient reason to walk the Camino other than Jesus.  My heels and the balls of my feet developed large, painful blisters that reappeared day after day.  I can think of little else that would motivate me to repeatedly stick a needle into my foot and then to walk seven hours on sore feet.  The ache in my feet was manageable when I knew that I was offering it up for something and that this pain was aiding someone else.  It would have been entirely different to just endure the pain as part of the adventure.

Why did I walk the Camino?  I walked it for Love.  I walked it because in prayer Jesus tenderly calls me “My Heart” and I wanted to fall deeper in love with that Sacred and Eucharistic Heart.  I walked it for a time of peace and solitude.  I walked for Jesus.

The Post before "The Camino Memoirs"

I have returned from walking the Camino de Santiago.  And I plan to write lots about it.  But not quite yet.  However, in anticipation of those writings, the next few weeks will more than likely be filled with what I will now dub “The Camino Memoirs.”  You will not fully understand my Camino because so much of what the Lord did was just for me, just for my heart.  Nevertheless, I will try to give you a glimpse into the beauty, the toil, the graces of walking across Spain for a month.

Until then–I realized that the Camino is life.  Each day is another day laboring in the vineyard, filled with beauty and sacrifice.  And each day takes us one day closer to Heaven.