Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for those in our parish Faith formation team (Chris, Christine, and Sarita), and all the volunteers that work to teach the word of God in our parish. That their efforts and labor would be fruitful and help our children, teenagers, and adults have a true encounter with Jesus Christ.

Monday, October 24th – memorial of St Anthony Claret.

Today was a cold but beautiful start to the day. We have a really big day ahead of us with almost 18 miles to walk. The weather forecast a day or two ago said it would be raining all week but today, although really cold, had no rain!

We didn’t take too many pictures this morning because we varied from pathways along the highway to a few paths in the forest and back to the highway again.

After about 7 miles we came to a town called Hospital de Obrigo. It had a beautiful bridge (built in the 13th century) connecting two parts of the town over a beautiful river. Along the left side of the bridge in a field were set up some type of wooden structure. I read on a nearby sign that they have medieval tournaments here with jousting and sword play!

From this point we had about an 8 mile walk to our next town. We were along a major highway on an old road with a massive incline that seemed to go on forever!

We were given a choice to take another route to the north which would have added another mile to our day. The guide indicated that the one along the highway was boring but shorter. We opted for shorter because we find that there are no boring paths on the Camino!

A pleasant surprise was when we came across areas of the hillside that had all these holes in them. All of a sudden as we were walking really large rabbits came out of the bushes and ran up and jumped into those holes!

Most of the day we spent in prayer and silence as we rarely saw any other pilgrims on our path today. We prayed the joyful mysteries of the Rosary for our faith formation team and all of the volunteers who serve our children, our teens, and adults in their spiritual formation.

• The Annunciation – that our faith formation team and volunteers would give their “yes” in love and obedience to God’s will
• The Visitation – that they would grow in the grace of love for those they serve in order to help form Christ in them.
• The Nativity – that those on the faith formation team and the volunteers would teach in a way that makes Christ the very center of everything!
• The Presentation – that the team and volunteers would take Jesus into their arms as Simeon and Anna did in the temple, and proclaim the good news of Jesus to all those they teach!
• The finding of Jesus in the temple – that the team and all the volunteers would teach and live in a way that would help the children, teenagers and other adults find Jesus in the scriptures and have a true encounter with him!

As we came over the hill into Astorga, the two paths of the Camino converged at this cross with a beautiful view of the city ahead of us. At the bottom of the hill was a statue of a pilgrim entitled “Sed” or “Thirst”.

In typical fashion of the Camino, after going up and over a crazy contraption of ramps and stairs over a train track, we came into the City and could see our hotel at the top of the hill. Just one more challenge… Climb these steps all the way to the top of the street or go around another two blocks to get to the front of the hotel. We chose the stairs! The harder way sometimes is the best way especially when you’re longing to reach the end of that day!

As I close out this day’s reflection I offer the prayer from the liturgy of the hours for this memorial of Saint Anthony Mary Claret.

Buen Camino 🙏❤️

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for those in our parish Faith formation team (Chris, Christine, and Sarita), and all the volunteers that work to teach the word of God in our parish. That their efforts and labor would be fruitful and help our children, teenagers, and adults have a true encounter with Jesus Christ.