Mtr Mary Trainor

Dear friend,

The social media platform Facebook lures its participants with occasional reminders of “memories.” I routinely pass up the chance to review photos of now-gone pets and people. Too painful.

But occasionally Facebook offers memories I cannot pass up. July has brought such recollections from 2014 when a priest colleague and I walked the Camino de Santiago from France to the Atlantic Coast of Spain to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.*

Others have done a better job of journaling, if you will, the pilgrim’s path along the Camino. If you have no experience with this, what first got me interested was a movie titled The Way** starring Martin Sheen.

As with each life, the Camino is a different experience for everyone, a path that begins (for me) in unknown territory, cuts through unknown territory, leads to a place I’ve never been before, and yet—similar to many pilgrimages—nonetheless leads to home, something familiar that I now see in new ways.

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Today the church recognizes Ignatius of Loyola, priest, monastic, and founders of the Society of Jesus. The Gospel given for this occasion is from Luke, with the passage beginning, “As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’” In this short reading, we learn that some who want to follow Jesus wherever, have things they want to do first—important things: bury a father, say farewell to the folks at home. But Jesus says, no, following him means not looking back.

But seriously, not burying your father? Not letting family know what has happened to you? Jesus said, the way is forward. Period. And yet...

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A quick look at Ignatius’ life and ministry from start to finish shows what is true for so many of us. In his book of reflections titled The Brightest and Best, priest Sam Portaro writes: “It is one of God’s ironies that reformers like Ignatius seem to end up pretty much as they begin; spiritual pilgrimage often leads us back home, takes us back to old places in new ways. This pattern suggests that we ought to be more thoughtful about our renunciations in this life.”

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Jesus often spoke in hyperbole, exaggerated speech, to make a point. Don’t bury your father. Don’t let family know what has happened. I think it is misleading to take this literally. Instead, I believe it to be a metaphor. Nothing in my life is more important to me than seeking God through Christ. Further, father, mother, family, state, country, none of these should become a divergence from that path.

The pilgrim seeks a larger truth, yet also returns to the corporal world resuming former patterns, a slave to calendars, visibly unchanged.

When I departed for the Camino, I expected to be an altered person. Yet, when I returned home, I was in for a surprise. I didn’t feel or see a change. I wanted to be able to cite quantifiable change in me, or how else was I to measure the Camino’s impact. But the Camino is not magic, nor is any spiritual journey. Rather, in Portaro’s words: “They are the road that takes us to God, and leads us back home, never to be the same again.” Whether it shows or not.

Mtr Mary

*Fr Peter’s Daily Bread from July 26 also touches upon the Camino, the Way of Saint James.

**Where to stream The Way

July 30, 2014, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, with certificate of completion.