Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for Father Mark Wajda, his ministry, priesthood, joy, and strength.

On this day (October 6th) the church celebrates the memory and ministry of St Bruno, priest. Lisa and I thought today was fitting to offer our day for the needs and ministry of Fr Mark at Blessed Sacrament. We are so grateful for our priests who lay down their lives to serve the church, the people of God!

We started our day with cafe con leche of course, but also morning prayer outside the monastery of Santa Maria La Real. Before we left Nájera we had to get a couple of pilgrim pictures:

The journey was rather tough with some steep climbs and hot weather. I’m happy to have prayer intentions to carry because there was one point I just looked back on the road and said out loud, “dear God I offer this to you for all the days Father Mark’s path has sucked!“. It was a real moment of exasperation but Lisa laughed out loud and then I started to laugh and the joy returned!!

We met a man from Buffalo named Daniel who was celebrating his 69th birthday. In fact when we walked next to him, he said his birthday was just 10 minutes before. He heard us speaking English (as we prayed the rosary) and asked if he could walk with us for a bit.

He told us some hilarious stories of his Camino experiences. And I think we were just the diversion he needed to make it to the next stop.

We had a variety of terrain to walk through this day. Long rocky roads, a semi-abandoned golf club community, and fields and fields of wheat. I found a souvenir for Lisa, a small fragment of wheat on the road.

We immediately thought of the scripture where Jesus says, “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains alone“.

Our lesson for the day was to remember that our lives are meant to be a gift to others. As we prayed for Father Mark and for all of our priests we talked about how wonderful it is to have priests who will give their lives so that we can have Jesus in the Eucharist and have shepherds in our lives lovingly caring for our souls to help us to heaven.

We arrived in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, checked into our hostel to get cleaned up and then headed over to the cathedral. There are just too many pictures to try and put them in this blog so please take a minute to look at our album for today.

If you’ve never heard about this saint it is an interesting story and legend involving a rooster/hen. There’s a short video in English that explains the miracle. There are even hens and a rooster in the cathedral over one of the doorways. They did not crow for us this day but we heard them in 2016 on our last camino.

Our most beautiful moment in the cathedral was when we passed by the chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is. This is gated off from the public and people were just walking by to take pictures. Much of the cathedral felt more like a museum than a church. But I noticed a sign that said “the chapel is reserved for prayer”

So I took the chance to unlock the bar and push the doors open and Lisa and I were able to spend some time before the presence of Jesus with evening prayer from the liturgy of the hours and additional prayers for all for whom we pray. It felt a little weird being on display in there as people continued to walk by but we figured, what else is this space supposed to be used for? This was the one place in this cathedral that really felt like a sacred place of prayer and worship. I know the rest of the cathedral inspires beauty even for those who just come to take a tour. But spending some moments before the Blessed Sacrament, talking to Jesus in his most sacred presence, was the highlight of this day!

We were able to visit the tomb of Saint Domingo. It’s huge and actually has two floors to be able to view it all. The lower level has beautiful mosaics of his life and other gospel stories.

For the rest of the night we had a great time at a local pizza place finding some good pasta, pizza and of course sangria. Tomorrow we face a longer day of walking to our next city of Belorado.

Until then pray for our priests and give thanks to God for the miracle of the Eucharist that we are blessed to be able to receive. “I am with you always even to the end of the age“…. -Jesus.

Buen Camino 🙏❤️

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for Father Mark Wajda, his ministry, priesthood, joy, and strength.