Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Why walk the Camino? Why would anybody want to spend a month walking nearly 500 miles through northern Spain? Why do I? That’s a darn fine question. I wish I had a good answer. When somebody asks me, I usually reply with a glib, “obviously, I’m an idiot.” The truth is, I don’t know why I feel called to the […]
» Read moreSantiago, Saint James the Greater, was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. His feast is celebrated today. He and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the fisherman Zebedee and his wife Salome, whom the Eastern Christians name Myrrh-bearer. They were disciples of John the Baptist, but the Baptist sent them to Jesus. So fiery were these two brothers, […]
» Read moreHow did I not know about this? Camino Seattle is a five-week walking/hiking and prayer event for St. James Cathedral Parish, beginning June 24, 2012 and ending July 29, 2012, the Feast of St. James. It looks very cool, but it’s practically over! And given that this weekend is Francine’s birthday, it’s unlikely that we’ll be attending any of the […]
» Read moreToday is the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Except when it isn’t. The feast days of most saints are the day they died. For Thomas, today is properly the feast commemorating “the Translation of Saint Thomas” – the day on which his relics were translated (moved) from Mylapore in India to Edessa in Mesopotamia in A.D. 232. Presumably, this […]
» Read moreOver the course of my initial equipment acquisition and experimentation, the Camino Boards have been invaluable. My Keens are just fantastic – they were broken in by the end of my first hike. My pack – an Osprey Kestrel 48 – is comfortable and roomy. Even with 15 pounds packed in, it weighs almost nothing on my back. And of […]
» Read moreToday the Church celebrates one of her oldest feasts, commemorating the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul. I prayed at the tombs of these apostles during my time in Rome in 2005. With the body of Blessed John Paul II mere feet from me, I knelt near Peter’s tomb at the high altar of the dark and nearly empty Vatican […]
» Read moreToday, after attending a young friend’s graduation, we headed over to Cabela’s to exchange my hiking shoes. I had purchased a pair of Merrils several weeks ago, but after about 20 miles of hikes they had not broken in. In fact, they’d gotten more and more painful the more I wore them. So I exchanged them for a pair of […]
» Read moreWhile today is the feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, I really have little to add over what I wrote last year. Instead, I’d like to ruminate a bit about next year. Yesterday at Mass, I heard the word “pilgrim” an awful lot, including twice the phrase “pilgrim Church on earth” (cf. Third Eucharistic Prayer). Among other things, it got […]
» Read moreGod willing, and assuming I have calculated correctly, exactly one year from today I will be arriving in Santiago de Compostella in Spain at the end of a long pilgrimage. The two obvious questions are: What? and Why? The “what” part is easy. I will follow the medieval pilgrimage trail known as the Camino de Santiago, starting from the mountain […]
» Read moreThere is something magical and compelling about a doorway, about a crossroads. It is a time and place in between the old and the new, between past and future; the liminal space where for a moment time stands still and new possibilities, undreamt of mere moments before, now come sharply into focus. Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, […]
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