The Perfect End

Last night I got back to Santiago and did the two things I really wanted to do to finish up.  

One was getting the final stamp in my Pilgrim Passport. This is stamped at each albergue along the way and used as proof that you have indeed walked the whole Camino.  

You're then meant to submit this to get (buy) a Compostella, a certificate of the Camino.  But for me the 32 stamps are enough and I'll frame this when I get home.  

The other thing was to go to the Pilgrim Mass. Santiago Cathedral was packed yet hushed in the lead up.  The cathedral is ornate with gold leaf on the high altar yet it seemed fitting and tasteful here where  it has seemed to me tacky and over the top in some other places. 

Mass was lovely. And yes, we got the botufumero (the giant swinging incenser) which doesn't happen at every Mass. But the most important things happened before Mass began. 

I arrived 90 min early to get a good seat and hold one for Josh. I spent time just praying, thinking, being still. Somewhere near the end of the second decade of the rosary I was hit with this rush of joy at the realisation that 25 years of priesthood and this pilgrimage walk have revealed themselves in each other, and brought me to this moment. Tears of gratitude welled up and rolled down my face. This was the denouement I wanted and needed to bring the journey to a close. 

This was the third time I've been in tears on the Camino. Firstly after the blessing by Sr Maria Jose, who asked me to pray for her in Santiago, which I certainly have. The second was in remembering Kevin Craik and listening to the stream of his funeral as I walked along. But this was the first time in public, with Josh sitting quietly next to me. I felt freedom to be this vulnerable, in a way that usually don't, so I think this is fruit of the Camino. Josh acknowledged something was happening for me and patted me on the shoulder, and then I continued in silent gratitude. 

Then, a couple of minutes before Mass began, with the church already packed and people standing everywhere, a man walked up to the pew in front of us and began agitating for people to move along (which there was no room for) so he could get in. He was making a fuss and an usher was on their way when Josh just stood up and offered him his seat. The seat I'd spent 90 minutes holding. But Josh got up without hesitation and moved over to stand in the side aisle and the other man gratefully accepted the seat. 

I sat in silence for a minute or two before getting up and joining Josh on the floor. I asked Josh why he gave up his seat and he simply said "I think he needed it more than I did. It meant more to him than to me". And so I learned perhaps my final lesson the camino. I saw the same thing Josh did, but he saw a need and did something about. Whereas I plan and prepare and then cling to my plans and worry then there is a threat to them, Josh is so in the moment and so detached that he is free, truly free to do the best and most Christ-like thing at the time. 

As I sat down on the floor with my back pressed against the cold, worn sandstone wall of this 1000 year old cathedral it seemed somehow more pilgrim to be here, sitting not on the relatively new polished pews but on the very floor where countless other pilgrims have sat over the centuries. It felt more authentic, said Josh. 

Indeed it is. As I sat on the floor, having experienced a lifetime of gratitude, freedom to be vulnerable, and now learning a lesson in how to be a better follower of Jesus from a 21 year old man I realised that my Camino is now complete. 

I am grateful, and ready to come home.