Have you ever dreamed of putting your life in the hands of fate... taking to the road towards the nearest site where a saint has been buried... without planning your trip... without protecting yourself against bandits and other perils of the road... just trusting in fate... whatever happens will be for the best? No??? Neither have I... but plenty of people have. This year an expected 180,000 people will trek part (or all) of The Way of St James to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it, that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried. One big attraction in choosing The Way of St James is that you can earn plenary indulgences... which is a remission of temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven. It's my guess that a few of us could well do with a truck load of plenary indulgences... so this could be our holiday of a lifetime.
Tonight, we are staying in Valcarlos... a tiny village lost in a narrow valley that runs down to the town of St-John-Pied-de-Port... an important stamping spot along The Way... you see, the Church just doesn't take you at your word. You can't bowl up to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain and say, "Oh yes, Father, I ran The Way in just one week... and carried crippled ladies across flooded rivers... and rescued little kittens stranded up trees." No, the church needs corroborated evidence to support your claims... they can't just go around handing out plenary indulgences willy nilly! Heaven would get too crowded. You need to have a Pilgrims Passport that you have stamped at specified locations... usually where an important medieval church had been built. St-John-Pied-de-Port is one such passport stamping place. I don't want to undermine your faith in the pilgrim process, but while in the passport stamping office, I did see money changing hands... I just hope that passport falsification is covered by plenary indulgences.
Again, not wanting to undermine your confidence, but there is some doubt that the body of St James made it back to Spain. We know he died in Jerusalem... and requested that his body be interred in Spain... where he was instrumental in establishing the Christian Church along the Ebro River. But legend has it that his boat overturned at sea and his body was lost... except for a miracle... it was washed up on the beach at Santiago de Compostela... without any decomposition... except it was covered in sea shells. That is why Pilgrims usually carry a sea shell with them. So the faithful brought him ashore and buried him. Twelve hundred years later, the church wanted to build a cathedral on the spot where he was buried... but no one knew where it was... no records had been kept... except they were saved by another miracle. A shepherd (you can always accept the word of a lonely shepherd) had a vision of blinding light... went to his priest and asked what it meant. The priest said that the shepherd had seen the burial place of St James... the sheperd walked down the road and pointed to the spot where the light bit the ground... thereby allowing the church to build the Cathedral in the exact position of St James' burial... how lucky was that! Because, if you walked 300 klms to earn plenary indulgences... but missed out receiving them because you got the destination wrong... you'd be pretty upset... at least I would.
The pilgrims we saw did not look a very pious lot... drinking their beer... wearing the correct labelled walking gear... laughing at their own jokes... just like you and me, really. We saw just one who may have had some 'messiatorial' qualities... standing beneath the giant Jesus on the headland at San Sebastian... calling out for people to follow him and fight for world peace... he had the eyes, voice and posture of Charlton Heston... I would have followed him... except it was getting dark and Joye said it was time to go home (to our hotel).
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