Day 5: Camino
Saturday, Sept 28
Today we walked from Palas de Rei to Melide, only about ten miles. It was a shorter day, a walk in the park you might say. (Well, not many in our group would say that, myself included :)
Before we started, we celebrated a votive Mass for Our Lady. It was a nice, simple Mass. I preached about how Our Lady has been present to me already so powerfully on this pilgrimage, and how I've heard of her presence with others also.
Because it was a lighter day, we had a bit more time to meander through the river valleys along the wooded pathways. So beautiful. It didn't rain today at all, which was a blessing.
I had a chance today to reflect along the way about the camino and what it means for discernment. I as Vocation Director walk with young folks all the time who are trying to "read the signs" and follow God. It is such an awesome ministry!
For one thing, the camino is a path. It is a way. From one spot to a destination. There are other routes in addition to the French route, which is the one we're doing. People start in different places but end in the same spot.
Along the way, there are signs all over. They point in the direction you're supposed to go. There are so many pathways, streeets, etc -- if you're not paying attention, good luck! You might miss one and then you're out for a while!
So it is with our lives.
God puts sign posts up all over. We are supposed to look at the signs and follow where they point. Sometimes they are crystal clear. Soemtimes you have to look a little closer. But if you miss them, you may not get where you're supposed to go.
Now sometimes--not often, but sometimes--you get to a place where there are two signs: one going straight and the other taking a turn. It took us a minute to understand, but what that means? It means both ways will get you there, but one might be straight and one might tkae you the long way. Both will get you there.
Maybe that is how it is with our vocations. God gives us options. He may be calling us down one way, but we just aren't sure. At a certain point, you have to commit. Then you go. And you won't go back. You may have saved yourself some trouble with one way, but maybe the other way would have been harder? or easier? Maybe you go one way and it's super hard, and you think--I should have gone the other way. But what if that way would have been even harder? What if you wouldn't have met who you met that way?
Sometimes folks stand and see two signs and they freeze. Not a good option! You'll never get there that way.
You ultimately just have to pick and then enjoy the way.
It's like that great poem by Robert Frost:
The Road Not Taken - by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
What I love about this poem? He got to a fork in the road and ultimately both ways looked about the same. He just had to go down one and that made all the difference.
It's about making decisions and then going with it, not worrying!
Tonight we had a lovely Mass and this piece struck me in the church: Jesus is missing a hand and it says in Spanish, "You are his hand"
