From the Camino: After entering Galicia I spent the night in the albergue of A Fonsagrada.
The town is named for a holy spring that is attributed to the Apostle, St. James, who while visiting this village, was cared for by a poor widow. In his compassion, James changed the water of the local fountain into milk to provide sustenance for the widow and her two children. Henceforth, the spring was considered holy, hence fons (spring) sagrada (sacred). The spring is located next to the Igrexa de Santa María, where I went to Mass that evening.
In almost every functioning church that I came upon on my Camino, locked throughout the day, there was an evening Mass at 7:00 or sometimes at 7:30 in the evening. This gave me the chance to pull into town, get located for the night, grab a quick shower, and have the menu del dia at the traditional Spanish time of 2:00 or 3:00 pm. Then I’d walk around the town to see what was to be seen, before attending the evening Mass, grabbing a glass of wine (or two) and tapas, and then hitting the sack. It quickly became the pattern to my days, one pleasant prospect following upon another. Such was my evening in A Fonsagrada.
As a rule on the Northern route the Camino isn’t as deeply wed into the local consciousness as it is on the Camino Frances, which supplanted it in time. The first time that pilgrims were acknowledged and blessed on my pilgrimage was after I had switched to the Camino Primitivo, at the Igrexa de Santa María in Fonsagrada, where the pastor called us pilgrims forward after Communion, so that the small community of the town at Mass that evening could prayed over us
There were eight of us, stretched out across the altar rail before the altar. I had met only one of them before, a young man who had attended Mass several times with me on prior evenings. He didn’t speak any English, and was somewhat shy, so our conversation was simple and stilted. Still, it was a very sweet moment to share with him and the others, even those I had never met before.
From the life of St. James: Acts 1:13-14 – 13 When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
For reflection: We are part of an ancient company of believers, journeying together. It began with a very small company of the eleven remaining apostles, the holy women and the family of Jesus. It quickly became something much larger, as missionaries carried the good news throughout their known world, even to far off Spain.
Whether James made it to A Fonsagrada, or even to Spain, is immaterial to the sense of community we are invited into as we walk along with our fellow pilgrims. We are each other’s companions, whether in the warm intimacy of a Camino family, in the casual bestowal of a well-intentioned “Buen camino” to strangers, or in the moment of prayer shared at an evening Mass.
We don’t walk alone. We are accompanied by the memories of past pilgrims who sheltered in the hospitales that lie in ruins alongside our path. We are witnesses with the inhabitants of the towns we pass through, of their sacred past, their churches and their holy memories. We walk with everyone passing by the same spots on our given day on this stretch of the pilgrimage. We are in communion with everyone on every one of the different caminos that all wind their way to Santiago.
Even when we are walking in solitude, with no one else in sight, we are not walking alone, as we drink from ancient holy springs that renewed pilgrims for centuries before us.
