Sunday, November 6th

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for our daughter Manessa on her 25th birthday.

On Saturday we took our rest day in Melide so we would be able to walk today for our daughter Manessa’s birthday. On our way out of town we found an open chapel and then we each found our own Camino marker which shows our current age in kilometers! (+/-) We decided to do our happy birthday video from the spot of Lisa’s mile marker.

Today was a shorter walking day just under 9 mi. We’re beginning to reflect on the last month and a half of this walk and preparing our hearts to return home.

We talked about how it’s a bittersweet feeling. We’re looking forward to going back home and returning to our family, our parish, and I guess what we would call “regular life”. Now the challenge is to figure out how to incorporate this daily walk, this Camino, into our everyday living.

For me I have found a new rhythm of prayer. I have found encouragement from the Holy Spirit to let go of more things in the world and make more room for prayer and communion.

“Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?”

James 4:4a

This passage from scripture has been on my mind and heart for the last couple of weeks. And I think this is one of the directions that I need to take home with me. Walking every day on the Camino affords a lot of time to meditate on the word, enter into prayer, and just be silent. There’s not a lot of time to be on social media, watch YouTube videos, binge watch Netflix shows while walking each day. So there definitely is a direction of pruning that the spirit wants to take in my life. To continue walking the Camino back home is to continue this rhythm of prayer, silence, and daily attention given to God.

As we near the end of this pilgrimage there’s also a certain excitement of reaching Santiago. I keep waiting for that inner transfiguration moment to occur. But then the Holy Spirit reminds me with this question, “why are you here?“.

Ever since we started planning this second Camino a few years ago it was always with the intention of it being a bookend to our spiritual journey. The first Camino started just two weeks after we began formation. This one, as a bookend in gratitude and thanksgiving for God’s call and the sacrament of holy orders.

Settling in to Arzúa, we take stock that there are now just 2 days left to walk. We will be in Santiago on Tuesday. I think the real unpacking of this Camino will happen in the months to come. After all it’s not the end of the Camino but only the continuation of it.

Buen Camino ❤️🙏

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: for our daughter Manessa on her 25th birthday.