A Miracle

We left the albergue (hostel) at 07:00 with no coffee in sight. The town we stayed in had one restaurant and it does no open until 10:00. We had decided the day before to leave early and arranged for our backpacks to be picked up by a local woman who lived in town and agreed to take the backpacks to the next hostel. For her it is a 15 – 20 minute drive and for us it is an all-day walk.

The only thing keeping me going was the promise of a cup of coffee in the next town. We had been walking up hill for what felt like a 1000 kilometers. Finally, a downhill slope on a paved road which was a welcome sight. After walking a few kilometers on the road, a sweet black and white dog runs out of nowhere and starts to encircle us, as if he was trying to stop us. He ran in little circles around us wagging his tail and one of my companions took out her phone to capture a photo.  When she took out her phone she looked at it and then at us and said. “Oh, no we are headed in the wrong direction, somewhere about 2 kilometers back we missed the turn off.

We turned around and looked up at the hill we had to climb and groaned.  The dog turned with us and headed up the hill as if he was showing us the way. He continued to walk just a few feet in front of us, turning every few feet and smiled at us and encourage us to follow him.

When we reached the top I could see why we had missed the turn off, the ubiquitous yellow scallop and arrow was slightly turned inward a little out of sight.  We had been enjoying the scenery on the opposite side of the road and easily missed the smallish dirt road turning to the left. It looked like a deserted road to a farm house.

The dog who had caught our attention was telling us we were headed in the wrong direction. I decided to name him Santiago.  He walked with us for about 3 kilometers and then turned around and went back home. They say the Camino always provides and this made a believer out of me. 

When we finally got to the next town with only one restaurant and literally nothing else, we went in and had a coffee- I had two. The woman who owned and ran the little café was so welcoming and even brought out stools so we could put our feet up. She said we were some of the first “pilgrims” (peregrinos in Spanish ) to start and she was happy to see the Camino picking up business. Then she took us across the street to a small church where there is a statue of Saint Roch. The patron saint of bad knees and plagues.  Yes, there is a catholic saint for EVERYTHING!!

According to legend Saint Roch was a French noble in the early fourteenth century. The legends say that he was marked from birth by a red cross on his chest.  Roch gave up his inheritance and his position in the community and set out on a pilgrimage to Santiago and later Rome.  This being the Middle Ages, there were plagues afflicting many of the towns along the way. Roch stopped often and cared for the sick often healing them miraculously by having them touch his birth mark on his chest.

But hanging around contagious people has its price. Eventually Roch contracted the plague himself, and he went to the woods to die. He built a shelter of branches, and a spring of water rose miraculously from the ground to provide him with a steady supply of fresh water. Then a dog—the hunting dog of a local nobleman—began to bring him bread. The dog licked his plague wounds on his leg, which began to heal.

Miraculously cured, Roch returned to France where he was put in a prison by his uncle who did not want him around family because of all the sick people he had been around. He died in prison and is known as the saint of pilgrims, the plague and bad knees

I walked out of town with a few holy cards of St. Roch and full of caffeine. One of the tricks to this walk is matching your walks with towns that have beds and food.  We passed towns with food but no where to sleep and we actually passed a small town with an albergue- hostel -but no food.  Some towns were just 5 kilometers from where we left, too short of a distance to stop but then you have to decide if you have the energy to go another 10 kilometers that does have a bed and food. And reach there before dark. A “real” pilgrim would just wing it and sleep on the ground if there were no rooms. At least I imagine that is what they did a few hundred years ago.

I have been reading from a small book by Anthony De Mello, a catholic priest from India.  I try to read a few pages before leaving for the day to meditate and think about on my walk.

Today he reminded me that there is not a single moment in my life that I do not have everything I need to be happy. If you are not happy right now it is because we have been programmed to be attached to approval, appreciation, attention, prestige, power, things money can buy or a life style society tells us will make us happy. But I can tell him in all honesty I am not happy right now because the second toe on my left food is screaming in pain from all the walking.

I have also been praying for everyone’s request. Most of all I have been praying fervently for Vladimir Putin, yes that’s right I have been praying every day that he will wake up and have a “Come to Jesus” moment and say “What I am doing, I have to stop this insanity.” That or a tragic heart attack in his sleep!!

I asked him out – he was married 😦