Camino de ______

Since attending a quiet, mostly locals mass on our first night, there were few opportunities to attend mass.  As much of our route was through very small towns and we chose to stay in off stage towns, most churches were closed or did not have mass times.  So it was much to my delight on Saturday to discover mass in Triacastela.  We decided to have a short walking day, only 14 km, and to stay, enjoy, and rest up a bit in a bigger town.  When we arrived to Triacastela around noon we visited the Church of Santiago in town.  As we were leaving I saw a man and woman walking and chatting about something in the graveyard.  The man stopped me and asked me how my pilgrimage was going and assured me that he would be praying for my feet.  I left with a smile on my face from our interaction.

So that night we came back for mass.  What a different experience from our first day in mass!  Surprise, we were no longer the only pilgrims present.  In fact the church was almost entirely full of pilgrims from around the world.  As mass was being said I heard Spanish, English, and Italian responses being used.  I also saw some people from the Philippines, South Korea, Canada, and Germany, and those were just the people I knew.  Second surprise, the man from before was the priest.  I was delighted to see him again and to realize he would be presiding over mass.

The gospel for that Sunday was Luke 11:1-13 in which the disciples ask Jesus how they should pray.  Jesus responds by presenting them with the Our Father.  As I heard the priest reading this, reciting the Our Father, I was immediately filled with such wonder and joy.  Here I was present in this church with people from all over the world coming to share in communion with one another.  We don't all speak the same language, but we all pray and we all pray the Our Father.  I was struck by the beauty of how different and unique we are and yet how connected and in community we are.

As the gospel reading continues, Jesus shares an example of friendship to remind the disciples that through prayer what we ask for we will receive.  In his homily, the priest connected this to the Camino and how the Camino is a path for us to Santiago, a path for us to drawer nearer to ourselves, a path for us to draw near to God, and a path for us for life.   He asked us how we would finish this sentence: The Camino is __________.  He then proceeded to list several ideas:
Camino de amor.  Camino is love.
Camino de fraternindad.  Camino is fraternity.
Camino de paz.  Camino is peace.
Camino of finding yourself.
Camino of relaxation.
Camino de aventura.  Camino is adventure.
Camino de evangelizacion.  Camino is evangelization.
And more.

As I sat in mass in communion with pilgrims from around the world I contemplated the phrase "Camino de fraternindad."  Here we are, coming together in unity to walk, to pray, to break bread.  Here we are coming with different languages, traditions, customs to all experience the camino.  I don't yet know how to answer that statement, it is only day 4 of walking.  And I probably will continue to dissect that as I continue the camino of my life.

What I felt above all as we joined hands, shared peace, broke bread, and prayed the Our Father in our languages, was the love, community, and peace present along the camino.  Love, community, and peace that the camino gives me hope for, throughout the world, as we each embark on our own caminos.