Santiago de Compostela: Pilgrims seek personal transformation along the road to a holy city

Pilgrims seek personal transformation along the road to a holy city

 

Pilgrims seek personal transformation along the road to a holy city

 

 

 

 

Puente de Furelos

Photograph by: Handout photo

To walk the Way of St. James is to journey across time. Murder, mystery, miracles and romance — this ancient pilgrim's road has seen it all.
Travellers have been making the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage for over a millennium, and interest in the route has only intensified since it was declared a World Heritage site in 1997.
The point of the trip for the dedicated pilgrim is to undergo a transformation along the journey that ends at St. James Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
There are several possible routes to take, but the French Way is the most popular. Four separate routes start in France and eventually converge in the Basque Country of the western Pyrenees into a single track crossing northern Spain.
How this remote area became the third most important religious centre for Catholics after Rome and Jerusalem is a fascinating glimpse into the history of the Catholic Church.
According to legend, in 44 A.D. the disciples of St. James — one of the three apostles chosen to witness Christ’s Transfiguration, according to the Bible — brought his body back to Santiago de Compostela after he was beheaded in Judea by Herod Agrippa. He had returned to Judea after a time spent preaching the gospel in the Iberian peninsula.
Then in 830 A.D., in the midst of one of the crusades, a miracle was reported: a night star pointed the way to the saint’s tomb, which had been lost for hundreds of years. St. James then appeared to lead the Christian forces against the Moors in the Battle of Clavijo. Word of the miracles spread and pilgrims began arriving by the thousands.
As early as 1140, the Camino acquired its own travel guide when the Codex Calixtinus was published, giving useful advice on where to find food and shelter, and how to avoid dangerous roads.
Lodgings sprang up along the route, which turned into villages, which built churches. To this day, hospices offer free overnight lodgings to modern pilgrims with the Compostela passport.
The landscape along the route is breathtakingly diverse: it changes from the forests and prairies of the Pyrenees into the hilly vineyards of the Navarra and Rioja regions, the plateaus of Castilla, the vineyards and forests of Leon and the forests of Galicia.
No maps are required to follow the route, which is marked by yellow arrows and the scallop shell — the apostle's icon. Ancient pilgrims often sported this seashell to ward off thieves and gain refuge at churches.
Along the French Way, travellers enjoy an abundance of Gothic and Romanesque architecture and history. The Roncesvalles museum, for instance, has artifacts from the defeat of Charlemagne’s forces here in the eighth century. At Puente la Reina, you cross over the Agra river on a pilgrim's bridge built in the 11th century.
The vast Cathedral of Burgos is famed for its 12th century carvings and sculptures. In Leon, you can see Europe's second-largest collection of stained glass — 133 windows — at the magnificent Santa Maria de Leon Cathedral and listen to Gregorian chant at the abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos. South of Triacastela, Benedictine monks at the Monastery of Samos have been offering hospice care since the 6th century.
So many weary travellers have rested their hands on the central pillar outside the Compostela Cathedral over the centuries that a permanent groove has been worn into the stone. Inside rests the magnificent altar where a statue of the seated St. James rises above the other figurines of kings and angels. It is a tradition to embrace the Romanesque statue of St. James before receiving the Compostela certificate acknowledging you have completed the pilgrimage.
Your journey is over and all sins forgiven: one of your last memories of the trip will be the moment when the cathedral’s massive botafumeiro, or incensory, is lifted and you breathe in its sweet, billowing perfume.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

See: http://www.canada.com/life/Pilgrims+seek+personal+transformation+along+road+holy+city/3452533/story.html

 

Way of Saint James: Christian pilgrimage is booming, not just for the faithful

Christian pilgrimage is booming, not just for the faithful

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Compostela on next November 6 and them Barcelona on November 7.

Christian pilgrimage is booming, not just for the faithful

By Denholm Barnetson, Agence France-PresseNovember 4, 2010

A pilgrim rests and looks at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, on November 4, 2010, at the end of the Way of Saint James - Camino de Santiago - Camine St. Jacques . Pope Benedict XVI will visit Compostela on next november 6 and them Barcelona on november 7.

Photograph by: MIGUEL RIOPA, Getty Images

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain --
As the Roman Catholic Church suffers paedophile scandals and falling congregations, Pope Benedict XVI will on Saturday spotlight one centuries-old Christian tradition whose popularity is soaring.
The Way of St. James pilgrimage route, which ends in the medieval Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, is attracting record numbers.
And it's not just those seeking religious salvation who are embarking on what is known in Spanish as the Camino de Santiago, as has been the case since the Middle Ages, but also growing numbers of non-believers in search of spiritual renewal.
"In Western society there is an absence of moral values, people are looking for something, something different, capable of filling this void," said Father Jenaro Cebrian Franco, who has run Santiago's pilgrimage centre for the past six years.
"People come to the Camino to make sense of their lives," said the 76-year-old priest.
He said he could relate "countless experiences" of people who have had a religious or spiritual awakening on the walk.
The Camino is in fact not one route but several, which start at different points in France and Spain and all end in Santiago, where the 12th-century Romanesque cathedral is believed to hold the remains of St. James the Apostle.
Considered the third most holy place in the Roman Catholic world in the Middle Ages after Jerusalem and Rome, Santiago, in the rugged northwestern region of Galicia, has drawn pilgrims for more than 1,000 years.
A 12th-century French monk and scholar, Aymeric Picaud, even wrote a guide, including descriptions of villages along the way - and warnings about what he considered some of the unsavoury inhabitants. It is now thought to be one of the world's first ever tourist guidebooks.
Renewed interest in modern times was sparked by visits to Santiago by the late Pope John Paul II in 1982 and 1989, said Father Jenaro.
He said the number of pilgrims rocketed from almost 10,000 to some 99,000 from 1992 to 1993, the first real "boom year."
In 2004, the last Holy Year - which is whenever July 25, the name day of St. James, falls on a Sunday - some 180,000 people took the Camino.
Since January 2010 - another Holy Year - the number is already around 260,000.
And a new surge is expected from the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, who will say mass in the vast Plaza Obradoiro outside the cathedral's main facade in the city's medieval core.
The pilgrims arrive exhausted but exultant at the pilgrimage centre, an old house on one of the city's narrow cobbled streets, many limping with bandaged feet or carrying heavy backpacks, and swapping stories about their experiences.
They stand in line, sometimes for hours, on two flights of stairs to receive their Compostela, or certificate, proving they have walked at least the last 100 kilometres (60 miles) or cycled twice that distance.
In the crowded entrance, abandoned walking sticks fashioned from tree branches are piled high.
Many pilgrims queue again outside the cathedral to embrace the statue of Saint James.
But not all are true believers, or even Christians.
From 2004 to 2009, the percentage of those undertaking the Camino for purely non-religious reasons has nearly doubled from 5.61 percent to 9.81 percent.
One of those, Julien Jouanolle, a 23-year-old unemployed electrician from France, decided to take the Camino after reading best-selling Brazilian author Paulo Coelho's book describing his own pilgrimage in 1986.
"It was a sort of voyage within myself, a way to sort things out," said Jouanolle, who walked 777 kilometres over 35 days with a friend.
Others see the trip as a sporting challenge, or a chance to share time with friends or to meet like-minded people.
Luis Real, 62, a Spanish photographer and an agnostic, said he and 12 friends walked or cycled 267 kilometres to Santiago, just "because we like sport."
On the Camino, "people are ready to share and help each other, in a society in which there is a great lack of solidarity, a great lack of communication," said Father Jenaro.
Be they "believers or non-believers" the Camino leads people "to the mystery of something that is at the heart of all human beings and which only has to be in the right conditions to appear."
He said the visit to Spain by the pope, who is also consecrating Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica on Sunday, "responds to his desire to be a pilgrim at the tomb of St James."

© Copyright (c) AFP

See:http://www.canada.com/life/Christian+pilgrimage+booming+just+faithful/3777337/story.html

Christian pilgrimage is booming, not just for the faithful

Christian pilgrimage is booming, not just for the faithful

Canadá - Vancouver, British Columbia

Mis impresiones y descripciones de un país tan diverso en sus culturas, tradiciones, opiniones, su naturaleza, su política y ambiciones.

Aquí - en Vancouver, BC- encontré con mucha gente que conoce y incluso a hecho el camino de Santiago de Compostela.
El músico Oliver Schroer (raíces alemanas/falleció 2009)compuso música compostelana y publico un CD con el nombre "Camino".

Gerardo Señoráns Barcala
Politólogo - Economista - Escritor/Freelance Journalist