2023

 Scrap yesterday's declaration that it was the best day of walking. Today was the best day of walking, even if it was by accident. 

There are a number of detours on the Camino (which makes the 800km total variable). The choice is usually to follow a main road, or detour out through the countryside. Josh and I had intended to take the main road today, but ended up on the detour, which added several kilometers, but was so worth it. 

We walked in a light drizzle through bucolic farmland where the ground was soft under foot, and up into a temperate rainforest. At one stage we just stopped to eat a couple of apples which Josh had picked from an overhanging tree and to look at the raindrops creating ripples on the surface of pond far below, and to listen to the rush of the water further down. We probably stood there in silence for ten minutes, and if I had to name the best ten minutes of the Camino, that might have been it. 

The detour also took us through to the Benedictine monastery of St Julian at Samos which I had wanted to see as it was founded in the 6th Century, although I didn't I'd get there. 

  

It might seem odd, but I'm finding it harder to remember my more recent years at Chatswood and Epping Carlingford than the earlier years. It might be because I haven't done the kind of long term reflection of these years yet that I have done with my earlier years, and hence, the value of spending time remembering and allowing gratitude to emerge here on the Camino. 

At the end of 2022 the newly ordained Fr Aldrin Valdehueza came to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at Carlingford after having done his pastoral placement here a couple of years earlier. He didn't know it at the time, but the bishop had already broached with me that Aldrin might be moving to Epping Carlingford in 2023. It was lovely to see the warmth between Fr Aldrin and the people at the supper after Mass, and I knew that he would be warmly received by the parish when the time for the move came.

2023 was a great year of consolidation. Covid, while still circulating was no longer a limiting factor on parish life or most people's lives in general so we could again have school Masses, adult faith programs, sacraments of initiation and youth ministry events unhindered. 

A highlight of 2023 was having another Jesuit tertian in the parish to lead the spiritual exercises. Fr Aldrin and I both have an Ignatian bent so we were delighted to have Fr Titus from Myanmar, an extraordinary man with us for 6 weeks. Again supported by CLC volunteers it was great to have so many people from the parish experience the richness of Ignatian prayer. This, and the follow up programs have now led to a small but stable ongoing CLC prayer group in the parish, which is a great legacy of Fr Titus's ministry, while he has long since gone back to his challenging work in Myanmar. 

Funerals are always a feature of parish life, but every now and then one stands out. Josie Scully's funeral stood out to me (as later did Mary Cullen and Claude Rigney's) as a celebration of extraordinary faith and of a life well lived. One of Josie's daughters gave the eulogy, and it was the most simple, elegant, poignant tribute lasting all of 3 or 4 minutes that it crystalised for me the realisation that when somebody is so unambiguously good, when their faith and virtue are so unimpeachable that a long eulogy isn't needed to prove the point. I sometimes find by contrast that the longest eulogies are an attempt to recover what was lost or never was. Vale, Josie, Mary, Claude. 

And of course the OLHC Epping building began to take shape. Pictured here are Emma McDonald and me on an early site visit, standing on the 3rd floor of the Parish Centre. This project was Emma's baby. She guided the parish through the discernment in the early years as to whether to take up the opportunity which the rezoning of Epping town centre provided, then expertly managed the process from contract with a developer to design to build. The arrangements are extraordinarily beneficial to the parish with remarkably little risk. And though Emma has since moved on from her role in the diocese I look forward to welcoming her back for the opening, whenever that may be. 

  

And so tomorrow brings my reflections up to this year. And, it means the Camino is nearing the end. Tonight I am in small town near Sarria, which is close to the 100km mark. There are apparently large numbers of people who start in Sarria and walk the last 100km which is the minimum to get the "Compostela", a certificate of having walked the Camino. So the peaceful journey may be about to change! Tomorrow will tell.....