Mel's Healing Pilgrimage 2016

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Friday, September 22, 2017

Camino 2017-09-22 I Want Jesus to Walk with Me

Today threatened to be a tough one. Depending on the trails I find, I could end up with 45km (28 miles)

So I already knew the hymn I needed to focus on today:

I want Jesus to walk with me
I want Jesus to walk with me
All along my pilgrim journey
Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.

In my trials, Lord walk with me
In my trials, Lord walk with me
When my heart is almost breaking
Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me

In my sorrows, Lord walk with me
In my sorrows, Lord walk with me
When my heart is aching
Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me

When I'm in trouble, Lord walk with me
When I'm in trouble, Lord walk with me
When my head is bowed in sorrow
Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.


It's a wonderful Gospel hymn that resonates with me. It's yearning for help, accepting of frailty, and yet powerfully committed to moving forward.




I didn't meet any pilgrims today. I perhaps did, hoping to find Jesus walking with me on this road to town. But it wasn't meant to be. And I was challenged. I had stunning views of riverfront farmlands for the first couple hours. This morphed into a more hilly forest walk. About halfway to Fatima I stopped at a church, aired out my feet, and snacked.



And then the uphill climb started. First the temperature swelled to the mid80s. But he uphill trudge through Monsanto wasn't enough. The Camino took you away from the highway for safety: right over a rocky, gravel-slipping trail with thorny plants grabbing at your clothing. And if that natural trial wasn't enough, the trail for a bit ran along side a barbed wire fence.




I stopped every few feet to suck down water and find my balance. Life can be like that don't you get think? Sometimes you just have to make sure you won't fall over.

I reach the top in a far slower time than had I followed the road. I rest at the picnic tables and peer at the town Minde below. Little did I know that I would again have to climb out of this valley on the other side.


I decided to pause to eat and get more liquids. But as I searched for a restaurant, an older woman started chatting with me. She was offering me some apples out of her bag, presumably from her yard. She wouldn't let me say no. So I took one and thanked her generosity, albeit I spoke in Spanish not Portuguese. And then she gave me more apples.


As I neared the top again, I saw windmills. It looked like Alto del Perdon outside of Pamplona, but without the cool statue.


I wanted to see Fatima in the distance but the forest made that impossible. I eventually made it down, found my hostal, napped and went into Fatima sanctuary space.




I won't recount the things I did but I appreciated the occasional "bom Caminho" comment.

I watched the pilgrims who come in on their knees. The congregants did the rosary together.


There's something amazing to me about a multilingual service. Every few minutes, the chant leader would switch out, usually with someone speaking a different tongue, and you'd hear a different representation of the readings. This is such a marvelous way to bind us together.we are one bread one body. It continued that way even into the night at the vigil.


The nightly procession was a good size of 7-10,000 people. It was definitely more organic than the one at Lourdes and that maybe made it feel more intimate. I appreciated the call for commitment, to real reparation, and in doing so find peace and love universal. I think our country could use a little of this right now. But we walked together. 

So it felt like, yeah, I got what I wanted. I got Jesus to walk with me.




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