A popular pilgrimage from the Middle Ages, the trek from southern France to Compostela in Spain...and then on to the Mediterranean, seems to be gaining more pilgrims than ever. It seems that anyone who can, hopes, plans, or actually walks the 500 mile, month long "way". Tradition has it that James, the brother of John, called James the Greater, evangelized part of Spain after Pentecost but later returned to Jerusalem where he was ordered killed by Herod Agrippa in 43 or 44 A.D., the first of the Apostles to give his life for our faith. James was part of that "inner circle" of Peter, and John, who were present when Jesus brought the daughter of Jairus back to life, and cured Peter's mother-in law. He was also present at the Transfiguration and during the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. His mother, Salome, approached Jesus to ask if he and his brother John could sit at Jesus' right hand when he came to power...
Because of El Camino and the beautiful church in Compostela,always full of pilgrims, St. James is an exceedingly popular saint today whose life serves as a blueprint for ours, for we are all on a pilgrimage toward the heavenly city, as Pope St. John Paul II spoke. "It is a path of prayer and penance, of charity and solidarity; a stretch of the path of life where the faith, becoming history among mankind, also converts culture into something Christian." May we all walk El Camino de Santiago wherever we are.
Bro. Rene
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