CAMINO: an authentic pilgrimage
There are few chances in our lives of faith to embark in adventurous and yet internally meaningful experiences. We have many established traditions that help us stay in a righteous path – praying, reading scripture, singing, going to workshops – and still it can feel that these daily practices don’t offer us a proper break from our secular and practical endeavors.
I started organizing groups of BCs to walk the famous Camino de Santiago in 2018. We managed (as part of the ESGD network) to bring one group a year since 2022. This summer we could have the 4th group of pilgrims – 3 blessed couples – that lived such a special and intense experience: to walk one of the main christian pilgrimages in the world (along with Rome and the Vatican).
“Walking is not a sport“, says the morning reading inspiration from Frédéric Gros, an early insight into a new way of looking at the most basic means of transportation. Walking can be – and indeed that is what we aim to have – a deep spiritual practice. Because that is what the Camino is about, apparently nothing more than walking:
On the Camino you just walk. There are no instructions other than the direction indicated by the various shell-signposts. The path is a world of its own, where time takes on a different form, where your only schedule is your next night’s accommodation. – JJ
But in walking we quickly realize the big advantage of such a process: through simplifying what our day to day becomes, we seem to be more clear about what is important in our life, and therefore in the very moment of each step. The pilgrim has no more concerns than getting into the next stage, eating food and rest. That’s all the Camino demands of you: walk, eat, rest. And that’s so special.
“…the Camino strips down life to the bare necessities. I am actually eliminating most sources of distraction and entertainment. Only the things that I do have are with me during this time. Even less than what I have in fact because so much of life is left behind. There is me, my companions of faith, nature, the path to walk and God. I couldn’t help but become so grateful for all the little things that I do have in life.” –SM
And yet, the depth on which we experience these days cannot be compared to anything else. Maybe it is the concept of “holidays” that gets challenged and reshaped by the Camino, revisiting the true idea of “taking a break”. Not because you stop doing anything and become a slave to laziness and indulgence for a few days, but because the space and openness while living a simple life for a few days becomes the best reminder of why we are taking holidays off in the first place. As one BC shares it:
In today’s world, there is always something out there trying to get my attention. As I grow older and my responsibilities increase, time continues to become a scarce resource. There’s something inside of me that is always looking for what I don’t have. Yet, simply choosing to participate in a lifestyle of walking for a few days with fellow BC’s was one of the more meaningful experiences of this year. – SM
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Topics such as family, growth, decisions, healing, faith, God…can seem far from the idea of walking. But it is not the walking that allows us to dig deeper into ourselves, it is the space we make while walking. We get to accept the contrast that the day brings, and we become accustomed to flow and not fight the inevitable transitions of this routine: the waking and the sleeping, the walking and the resting, the talking and the silence, the friends and the strangers, the hunger and the food, the rain and the sun…and ultimately, the journey and the destination.
It is only in this interplay, in this dialogue of constant sequences, that we get to grasp that life can be meaningful regardless of the context. And the pilgrim not only conceptualizes this, but experiences it in a way that becomes hard to convey for those who are not walking with him or her.
“I found peace here, a peace that can only be found by walking for days on end, rain or shine, carrying everything you need on your back. Coming to this pilgrimage for the second time felt like coming home, like the peaceful spirit of the road saying to me, “Hey, good to see you again! I am still here and I will be here. Whenever you seek me again, please feel free to come back home.” – JJ
What I could witness throughout all these years, as a pilgrim myself, but also as a host of such a special activity, is that BCs resonate immensely to this journey. Maybe because of its incredible spiritual foundation of hundreds of thousands of other pilgrims, maybe because it taps into one key archetypal journey of the human condition, or maybe just because when we make space for God – when we stop distractions and noise – we cannot but to be aware that being present in the journey is what makes the journey itself.
Walking the Camino is not just an external journey, but also an internal one. It offers a lot of space to explore your inner self, where you are at in life and how to continue forward. But it’s not only an opportunity for constructive reflection as it can also provide space for a needed break in life, for being and becoming more present. – LK
It is hard to describe how it feels to arrive to the cathedral after 7 days of adventure, walking 186 km when in rain or sun, with its peaks and its valleys; to make the stranger a friend, and the friend a companion; to overcome fears and concerns and allow the soul to guide us; to challenge the body and to appreciate our finitude. It is almost impossible to explain how it feels to arrive at the Cathedral. And for that itself, I think it’s worth walking the path.
I am beyond grateful that such an opportunity exists, and that I am able to offer it in my home country. I encourage all of you to seek God in your well known homes, but also in the remote corners of each adventure. See you on THE WAY.
JB
