El Camino de Santiago

One of my mentors, Charles Nienkirchen, made great efforts to teach his students about the importance of introspection. Ongoing self-scrutiny is an invaluable spiritual discipline. By searching ourselves we come to know more than ourselves; we come to see the work of God and grace in our life. And when we look at ourselves with regularity, we can perceive small, incremental changes that have been wrought over time. Small graces over long periods are how many of us are transfigured. I suppose, also, that small evils left alone to fester and corrupt can over years and decades leave us dead, and still weeping and gnashing our teeth.

It is with interest, having last posted on my memories of having arrived at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, that I re-read my online journal, written while I was on the Way. It was not meant to be a journal, as such, but a way of keeping my friends and family current on what I was experiencing. In fact, each entry was just an email, which my pastor at the time decided to post on the church website for the community to read.

I remember being at a lunch with acquaintances from the church and one asking me, "So, did you learn anything important on your trip? Did you pick up some wisdom?" I thought for a moment, and realized, perhaps for the first time, that I had learned more than I could collect, and that I could develop it over a lifetime. I replied, "Yes." And he looked at me, expectantly, waiting for an elaboration. My heart sank a little. I told him the one thing that might be of real help to him at that time, one of the most important jewels of wisdom I was graced with on our journey. I said, "I can't tell you what I learned; it just doesn't make sense without the experience."

It's true that the lesson of El Camino de Santiago is inseparable from the pilgrimage itself. I suppose that so much of our wisdom is like that. If the desert is an essential element of our spiritual life it cannot be avoided by talking or reading or praying around it. We cannot be completed in the faith by reading the gospel of the Cross; we each have to take up and bear our own crucifix.

Do I equate my time on the Way of Saint James with the cross I have to bear? No. It is, however, a part of my own via dolorosa. In reply to one of my emails Charles said that he thought all of what Jesus did from when he left the waters of the Jordan at his baptism was a part of the Way of the Cross. Did not all roads then lead to the Passion for our Lord?

And so, in good measure are the disciplines of penitence, penance, fasting, and scrutiny vindicated. They prepare us for Gethsemane and for Golgotha and for the New Jerusalem.