Wednesday, October 26th
Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for Carmen Loperena – for her personal prayers for her sons and her grandson.
Today we were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the blue skies and sunshine when all of the predictions for the weather called for partly cloudy and rain. Today is a particularly special day as we journey to Cruz de Ferro, or “Iron Cross”. More about that in a moment.
We started off with some bit of an incline and slightly rocky terrain but also very beautiful fall colors and wooded areas.
About 5 mi into the hike today we were praying the Rosary and preparing our hearts for this significant moment on the Camino. This is a large iron cross on top of a high pole and traditionally, pilgrims bring a rock from their home country and carry it with them for the entirety of the Camino until this moment. As we approached the cross we could see it from a distance and we were still finishing the glorious mysteries of the Rosary when the emotions began to hit us!
The traditional prayer that is offered before placing your stone at the foot of the cross is:
Lord, may this stone, a symbol of my efforts on the pilgrimage that I lay at the foot of the cross, weigh the balance in favour of my good deeds some day when the deeds of my life are judged. Let it be so
For myself I added a silent prayer as well, offering my stone as a symbol of leaving behind all of my regrets, shame, failures, and baggage that I have carried in life. I have had a full month of walking this Camino and the Holy Spirit has shed some light on areas of my own heart which need to live in the freedom of Christ. I was thinking of Father Mark who so often reminds us to bring all of our issues, failures, sins, etc to the altar and leave them there…to give them to Jesus. Needless to say, we did some hard crying today but then left there, having passed through the cross, lighter and experiencing joy.
The views from there were just astounding! I hope you will see some of them in the full album. As we started another climb we came across a memorial to Michael Cura, who died on the Camino in July 2016. I was struck by the saying at the bottom of the plaque.
“The boat is safer anchored at the port. But that is not the aim of boats“.
Jesus said in the Gospel, “I have come that you may have life to the full”. Today was a challenge to follow Jesus wherever He leads, even to the cross and beyond. For wherever He is, there is the fullness of life!
It seems that right after a moment of victory and spiritual significance, comes the test of faith! From here on out we were met with a path that was a true test of endurance today! The next 10 miles we walked down a steep descent of rock, ruts, and treacherous slopes. (3378 feet of decline!)
The Lord is faithful to give us a moment of laughter just about the point at which we might despair!
At a later time in the future I’ll write more extensively about some of the insights gained from this day. The one thing I can say is we were very tempted towards the end of the day to allow such a lengthy time of enduring the path to rob us of the joy of the day’s beauty. This reminded me very much of our journey in life. We get moments where we glimpse joy, happiness, a little bit of heaven. And then the hardships and afflictions of life come and try to rob us of that joy. It seems the real test of faith is to cling to those moments of beauty and joy and allow them to become a source of strength to continue on the path. (Come Holy Spirit!!)
As we finally reached Molinaseca, we laughed a little that what Google maps said should only take an hour took us in fact three and a half or 4 hours because of how slow and careful we had to step. And even as we arrived into the town we had one last bridge to cross…
The day ended well with our host at the hostel giving us an upgraded room. We have a comfortable bed and we don’t even want to leave for the night! Tomorrow is a new day with hopefully easier terrain. I’m sure we will sleep hard tonight!
Buen Camino 🙏❤️
Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for Carmen Loperena – for her personal prayers for her sons and her grandson.
Happy Catholic Deacon 