It was a damp and chilly Tuesday morning as our group of twenty youth and their leaders from Church of the Holy Communion gathered on the Camino de Santiago in the town of Sarria in Northern Spain. With a few unexpected difficulties changing our US currency, we were taking much longer than expected to begin our journey to Santiago de Compostela. We were to hike between fourteen and sixteen miles a day and arrive in Santiago on Saturday afternoon. We had been preparing on Saturdays by hiking at Shelby Farms and our spirits were high and enthusiasm strong. Although we were hiking to Santiago Cathedral, the reliquary of the body of the Apostle St. James, we were also hiking to grow closer together as a community, to find the many ways that the Spirit is present in our lives, and to learn more about our own selves and our relationship with Christ through the struggle of being in a foreign environment, uncomfortable, and physically in pain. We were walking in the footsteps of thousands of others all on a spiritual quest trusting in the path that others had walked before us.
By four in the afternoon we began arriving at the town of Portomarin. A few of our group were really beginning to struggle. One even believed at that point that he would not even be able to finish the first day of hiking. I have to admit, I was very surprised with the high degree of difficulty of our walk and had little faith that our whole group would be able to complete our journey.
Wednesday’s hike led us through Hospital da Cruz which owes its name to an old pilgrims’ hospital that existed until the late 18th century. We hiked, still in high spirits today as our pilgrims sang songs and recited prayers to pass the time as we hiked to Palas de Rei. Those that struggled the day before during the hike had made peace with their pain and pushed on today, at a slower pace, but none-the-less moving forward one step at a time.
On Thursday we began hiking to Arzua, passing through ancient yet hospitable villages such as Furelos where we visited the Parish Church of San Juan which dates back to the 12th century. Thursday brought different spirits within the group. People began to really spread out and hike at different paces, and pilgrims who had previously been the pace setters began to settle in at the back of the group. There were moments of joy and wonder when our group lifted each other up through songs and words of praise and our weaknesses were exposed. By this point in our pilgrimage, most everyone had some sort of physical problem. The only young person who didn’t have problems with his feet, caught a stomach bug.
Yet through the blisters, bloody feet, sore knees, ankles, calves, hips, and Achilles tendons, we marched into Santiago de Compostela on Saturday afternoon, silently reflecting how five days and seventy five miles of hiking had changed our lives. We stood in awe before the massive Santiago Cathedral only to stand next to another pilgrim from Memphis who had been hiking for six weeks to get to this point. He was one of only three pilgrims from the United States we had met but helped us to understand how connected we had become to the whole world.
Our pilgrimage to Santiago, this Journey to Adulthood pilgrimage, was beautiful and challenging, painful yet full of joy, causing us to trust in those that had gone before us marking the road with yellow arrows and leading our way to God. The five days on the Camino helped us to better understand the earthly pilgrimage we are on, trusting in those who go before us to lead us and keep us on the path to God, through pain and joy, and through beauty and hardships. It caused us to rely on the support of our friends who came back to walk with us and help pull us through the stretches of walking that we were unable to do on our own. And by that support of those friends and fellow pilgrims, helped to show us the presence of Christ in our lives.
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