Camino 2022 – Day 20 to San Juan de Ortega

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: Kathy Moore healing for mobility issues and personal family intentions.

Today’s journey is described by Lisa.

We started our morning walk leaving the outskirts of Belorado behind. As we were departing we saw this message on a wall:

So we walked ahead 15 steps and then stopped and turned around and saw this beautiful mural on the backside of the buildings.

We have seen a lot of graffiti on this trip. It was so wonderful to see some beautiful art as well.

From Belorado to our first stop went by quickly, filled with prayer and the Gloria. From a distance we saw what appeared to be caves in a mountainside, and then a church born from the rock. We learned that this was a hermitage of Our Lady of Peña, having a carving of Our Lady from the 12th century. Since this was so far off our path, we took some time at the parish in this small town, St Stephen’s, especially dear to Richard’s heart.

After a few small villages we began a 7+ mile stretch through a forest, with steep inclines. I (Lisa) don’t have a good arch in my feet, and when there are significant slants in the path it can be especially difficult for me. There were more than a few tears shed, but even in the midst of them we offered up the luminous mysteries of the rosary

How providential, that as the small, tenuous steps were taken, we had offered up the day’s intentions for Kathy, for her struggle with mobility issues and other requests. At dinner, when we were finally able to rest, we were so thankful for the day’s walk. Although sometimes the path is so narrow, you cannot walk without putting one foot directly in front of the other, other times it is wide enough for 40 people to walk shoulder to shoulder. And sometimes, what seems completely harmless… a simple slant of the path up a mountain, can make the way seem impossible. Yet there is grace. Grace through the struggle, through the pain, grace to walk for another.

We finished the day by arriving to the monastery at San Juan de Ortega. Since we wanted to take Sunday off and be sure to have a mass available, we took a taxi into Burgos and spent the night there. A good meal and a bottle of wine at a restaurant with Indian food was just what my body pains needed.