These Holy Bones - Episode 9: To The Field of Stars by Father Kevin Codd - A Book Review

  Hello, and welcome to another episode of These Holy Bones, a podcast about the ancient pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago, where the bones of St. James are interred beneath the high altar. I'm your host, Robert Nerny, and on today's episode, I would like to do a book review  on Kevin Codd's book entitled To the Field of Stars.

A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela. This was written in 2008, published by Erdmann's. It's about 270 pages. And it's a brill I think it's a brilliant book. I think it's it really is brilliant. I think it captures so many qualities of the Camino. I want to start with the quote.  It is on the cover of the book, and it's a quote from Martin Sheen, who is the famous actor,  and who stars in the movie The Way, which is about the Camino Francés, actually. 

He says, in this wonderful book, Father Cod brilliantly captures for us the essence of pilgrimage.  Through his spiritual and emotional trek, pilgrims are confronted with their own broken humanity and come face to face with the God they seek.  I love that quote. It sounds like Martin Sheen has walked the Camino for most of his life.

I read before I go on the Camino and I think this is my perspective that if you have time, part of your preparation should be reading. A lot, I know that a lot of times you spend your preparation in REI or  some sporting goods store, but, and that's part of it.  But this will give you a sense, a deeper experience, I think, and it definitely gives you a sense of what's about to happen.

But this book, you can read before the Camino, while you're on the Camino, and after the Camino. I think it just, it'll speak to you. At different points of your of your pilgrimage. And let me get right into it. In the introduction I love this introduction he is a very good writer. He's very very clear and super descriptive,  but not cumbersome.

It's not prose that you have to like, muddle your way through. It's very clear, very easy to read, and it brings you places,  but he says in the second paragraph of the introduction, he says, I'm about to share here a story about stars at dance. May I advise you to exercise a modicum of caution in attending to what follows for the story of stars dancing over a field in a faraway land may so draw you away from the ordinary business of daily life.

That you find yourself quite to your surprise in a new world of unexpected adventures and remarkable people and some very profound mysteries. Now that's definitely a Tolkien Tolkien esque type of passage. Bilbo Baggins says, it's a dangerous business photo going out of your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no no knowing where you'll be swept off to.

So when I read that, I was like, Whoa,  he definitely has read the Lord of the Rings and it comes, actually, he does reference the Lord of the Rings in the book. I do this second page here of the introduction. I do the fact that he does reference Define a pilgrim. So  in my experience, there's no, it's hard to Categorize, the pilgrims that are on the Camino.

It's impossible you don't categorize humanity you experience humanity, but I am going to read  from this, Introduction. He says a pilgrim is a believer Who travels to a holy place a place where god seems especially close To ask for pardon, to beg a favor, or to give thanks for blessings received. 

And so that's his definition of a pilgrim. I've met many pilgrims on the on the way on the road, and they probably wouldn't agree with this. They would maybe say that I'm here not as a believer, per se, definitely not as a Catholic, but I'm here because it appeals to me. It appeals to my sense of adventure, or it appeals to my interest in history, in culture, in language, in cuisine, but I'm definitely not here because I'm a Catholic,  which is fine.

But I, and I think Fathe