Vol 1 Episode 3: An Expression of Gratitude

In this third episode of These Holy Bones, Julio, a pilgrim from Mexico, explains his reasons for walking the Camino Frances. He also tells of his encounter with Diego, a Spanish pilgrim, who has walked the Camino several times but never for himself--always as a sacrifice for others. Diego's generous actions have a profound impact on how Julio understands the Camino as he continues his pilgrimage to Santiago. 

Transcript

Vol 1 Episode 3 An Expression of Gratitude - 7:9:24, 10.03 PM

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of These Holy Bones, a podcast about the ancient pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago with the bones of St. James interred beneath the high altar. I'm your host, Robert Nerney. And today I'm talking to Julio from Mexico, a pilgrim I met on the way into our albergue tonight.

Welcome Julio. Good to see you. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Hey, thank you, Robert. Uh, well, my name is Julio, as you said, and I'm from Mexico and I'm doing the Camino for the first time. I'm 42 years old. The next month we're in July. Well, my motivation to do the Camino was to be grateful with, with God.

El Jefe, I call him because he has been too generous with me, too generous with me, with my family. Uh, he arranged my life after my life was, uh, kind of messy. Thank you. [00:01:00] So I travel to do the Camino just to To say thank you But uh after today my views have changed a little bit gratitude is a lost art That's beautiful that you're sharing in gratitude, um to our lord So, um, tell me a little bit about what happened today I know that uh, you met diego and diego is a pilgrim that i've seen on the on the camino I met him in a cafe not not officially, but I saw him in a cafe A few days ago, and I know you just had a, uh, a conversation with him.

So tell me what, what happened there. Yeah, I think you, and I want to talk about Diego cause he is an awesome guy. Uh, Diego is now 70 something years. I don't remember. He is a grown man. He has done the Camino 14 times. This is his 14th Camino. You know the tradition is when you do the Camino, they give you the Compostela.

What is a document which tells how many miles you did [00:02:00] and is your name in it. The interesting thing is that Here is that Diego has, has done the Camino 14 times, but he doesn't have a compostela with his name. He always put the name of somebody else in there. And that's really interesting because Diego believes that when he does a Camino for somebody else, two kind of things occur to him.

The first is he managed to get this strong to do it. And the second is. Every time you do it in your mind, in your heart, for somebody else, for the health of somebody else, you become the host of the emotions of that person. So, it's so interesting the way he talks about how he starts to feel some pains that he doesn't have.

When he does the Camino in the mind to cure somebody, it's, it's, it's like, if he's carrying the, the, the [00:03:00] sickness of that people, and then when he finally end the Camino for some reason with little time, that person just become healthy again, the most extraordinary example is maybe his mother. His mother was the reason for.

His first Camino and, uh, when his mother was 90 was so sick. So he tried to help it. Help her in any way possible. So he did the Camino and then he managed to get the compostela. He put the name of his, of his mother there. His mother who were about to die by then is now 104 years old. Well, that's just. I don't know.

Amazing, Robert. That is amazing. That's beautiful. That's miraculous. And I think that's part of, a big part of this Camino. That we, we walk it in faith. Some of us walk it in faith. And I think, um, I mean, I think, I believe the Lord brings us [00:04:00] all on the Camino if you don't know the Lord. I think he's still he's taking people by the hand and bringing us on the community.

That's a beautiful story. And Diego seems like a very beautiful man and obviously very generous. And it's funny that, um, you say that, that he had his mother's name put on the Compostela. And that's kind of like the movie, the way with Tom Avery has his son's name, Daniel Avery put on the, uh, on the Compostela at the end of the movie.

Um, that's beautiful. So we're a few days into it. You know, five or six days into our Camino and what has been the biggest challenge for you so far? Well, uh, it's been more, uh, uh, physical challenge for me more than a mental challenge because, uh, I'm a lonely person and I spend a lot of time with myself.

So the Camino for me is just like, uh, it's a party with myself and with, with the Lord, you know? Uh, and I've heard that a lot of people always say that. The hard part on the [00:05:00] Camino is, uh, we just start to struggle with yourself. I don't know if it's going to happen so far. I've been so good. I've enjoyed the Camino.

Of course, there's blisters and there's sun and there's tiredness. Uh, I'm tired, but, uh, when, when I say to you, I'm came here to, to, to say thank you to God, thinking this is going to be hard is going to, it's hard. So far it has been hard, but I also believe in God when, when he says, If I give you I'm gonna give you more I'm here With the mind that this is gonna be a hard thing.

Well, it has been a really Nutritious experience most of all because the people the people you met the people you cross in the Camino They're special people and Diego was talking about this earlier, too Yeah, he was saying that you met angels here in the Camino when you got a trouble when you got a pain when you You Can go further with no explication somebody [00:06:00] just appear and heal you and and give you that that little extra you need to Keep going and a lot of times it's just One insignificant thing, but that little thing just changed all your mindset, you know, it's there's magic in the Camino Robert I agree yesterday It was very warm and I felt like I couldn't go another step and I needed I had run out of water And I saw a gentleman behind the fence sitting down and I asked him I said Agua, agua.

And he said, no, no agua. I was like, no, no agua. He said, no. I said, I need water. He goes, Oh, hang on. And he couldn't speak English. I can't speak Spanish, you know? And he came, uh, to the fence with a, a liter and a half of water. He gave it to me and he said, I'm sorry, it's not cold. And I wanted to cry. And so I shook his hand and I said, thank you so much.

And in my mind, I said, I'm going to pray for this. on my Camino, I don't know his name, but I know the Lord knows his name. And [00:07:00] so I agree with you just those little, just, just water. Okay. Water. It was, uh, it's like you said, it's a miracle. And so that that's, you do, um, encounter miracles on the Camino. They might be small miracles.

They might be big miracles like Diego's mother. Um, but I do believe that the path is riddled or wrought with miracles. And that's why I keep coming back. All right, Julio, what do you expect in the days to come? Well, since I'm going to take the Diego's advice, I expect, uh, it's going to be a little harder because, because now I'm going to do it for somebody else.

Let's end on that. That's beautiful. And I just want to say, Buen Camino. Buen [00:08:00] Camino.