These Holy Bones: Vol. 2-Episode 18: The Camino Companion Office

At the end of a very long walk, many pilgrims have a need to talk about their pilgrimage, to process the many hours spent on the road to Santiago. In the pilgrims office where a pilgrim gets the final stamp on the credential and receives the Compostela, there is another office, the Camino Companion Office, wherein a pilgrim can go and discuss the journey that they've just completed with volunteers like Sister Mary and Margaret from Scotland. The office offers an opportunity to meet other pilgrims, the opportunity to pray about the walk, and a chance to have a cup of tea with kindred spirits. 

Transcript

Robert 0:10

Welcome to another episode of These Holy Bones. This is Robert Nerney, your host, and I am in the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago, and uh actually in a very special uh sub-office, which is called the Camino Companions. Yes, the Camino Companions. And um we have Mary who's going to introduce herself and okay, and Maggie. So Mary and Maggie, two beautiful names. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're here and what you do?

Sr. Mary 0:39

Okay. So I'm Sister Mary. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. Um I just say it because the FCJ on the card there, um, Faithful Companions of Jesus. So I'm an FCJ sister. Um, one of our sisters who came out of her term of office set up this project, Camino Companions, and so I volunteer here every year for about a month.

Robert 1:07

Um That sounds good. All right. So I um when you're not here.

Sr. Mary 1:14

When I'm not here, I'm in Romania. Oh wow. Um so in Romania I teach, I do interviews on Catholic television. Oh, excellent. And uh I um accompany people on retreats. I'm involved in Ignatian spirituality. Oh, that's intense. I do translations, do a variety of things in my retirement.

Robert 1:36

Oh, very good, God bless you, sister. And Maggie, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Margaret 1:40

So I um lived most of my life in Bolivia and went back to Scotland about twelve years ago, and then I have walked uh three Caminos since then. Wow, and loved the experience, and uh a lot of people just want to give something back because they've been in the hostels and they've experienced the volunteers. So I volunteered last year in one of the hostels in the Albergue in on the French route, and that was a lot of cleaning, a lot of toilets, and then somebody mentioned this ministry, and I do some spiritual accompaniment also in Edinburgh, and it was look this ministry basically works with spiritual dire you know, uh direction accompaniment, just people talking about the experience of the what the Camino has meant for them. Okay. So some people come in and they've they've walked because somebody, the death of somebody, the loss of a relationship or a job, or and it's uh just a precious time to to visit that. I mean the the quote which I hadn't often before, which I'm loving from here, is T. S. Elliott saying we had the experience, but we we missed the uh what is it, the the meaning, you know. Right. Sometimes we have the experience but we miss we don't take the time to process it and think about what we're doing.

Robert 2:59

Right. And this tends to be such a profound experience, especially over days. And sometimes it's very difficult to really process it and say, well, what was this about? That's right. Why did I come out here on this dusty road?

Sr. Mary 3:11

If we just go straight home back into work, back into family, back into everything, then we missed it.

Robert 3:15

Right, right. And so you you help you help people to process it.

Sr. Mary 3:18

Yeah.

Robert 3:19

That's a great gift. That's a great gift. Now I've never availed myself to this office. My wife and I have my wife did it four times, and three other four she got bed bugs. So she said, Robert, that's it, I'm not going back. No, she was fine. That's part of it, right? But um, but we had talked about this office before and and talked about should we come up, and but so this is my first time here, so thank you for the welcoming uh you know gesture.

Sr. Mary 3:43

So the office is on the first floor of the pilgrim office here, and um the room uh it has an Irish flavour to it, really. Um so the pictures on the wall here were prize-winning photographs that the Irish community uh for the Camino had uh set up. Beautiful. And behind you there's a poster of the Camino Voyage where a group of Irish rowers arrived here in 2016. They had rowed from Ireland over four years. Wow. Um so we we meet very interesting people. But we also, for instance, we could tell you about today. So the day really starts because we start by having a little prayer, our team in that corner. And in that corner at the moment, you'll see some football trainers that um uh some parents brought in because their son had uh died unexpectedly and he played uh football for an Irish team. Um but we gather around that and we try and look ahead to the day and hold people that we've accompanied the day before. So today after that, then we went to the mass. There's a a chapel. This whole building once belonged to a convent and the chapel, there's a mass in English every day at 10:30. And we invite the uh the people present to come upstairs if they want a tea and coffee and just have a chat about their Camino. Um this morning, for instance, we had um a young couple from Taiwan. We had uh uh an Italian, um Irish, English, Australian, Australian um and then we were scattered amongst them. Wow, that's beautiful. Yes, so people shared today. There was a lot of talk about the fires here. The the Taiwan couple, Taiwanese couple, um described how they narrowly missed how to uh find ways round the wildfires that have been blazing here in Spain for the last few weeks. Um and then other people shared on uh uh quite deep experiences for themselves. Uh the a couple walking uh with their daughter who's just taken her fine leaving exams at school. The results came out today, and they talked about parenting and letting go. Very beautiful.

Robert 6:23

That is beautiful, yeah. Uh, this this particular comino, I walked uh 200 miles with two Dominican priests. They're from Washington, D.C. One's a theologian and one's a philosopher. So it was very interesting, it was very intense. We had mass every night at midnight, they would say mass. And um, yeah, so that was my journey this year. Uh very interesting. I was gonna ask, sister, um is there a common motif uh when I say common, something that comes up over and over again uh while people are processing this uh experience?

Sr. Mary 6:53

I have to think for a moment because everybody's experience is different. But one thing that I've noticed, I don't know, Maggie, whether you would agree, um, that people appreciate the time. Um we've had a couple of people who are making life-changing decisions about their future and they say how different it is to have space and time where they really uh can consider over seven or eight days. We have heard that a lot in this last few weeks.

Margaret 7:28

Perhaps the concept that you've lost control a little bit, so you're not your plan, you're not planning every you know in the morning from ten till eleven. So the day is much more flexible, and then you can't get into that hostel, or you you're too tired, or you've got blisters. So there's a lot of okay, this is I can slow down and I can just live each day really as a being present, which is almost impossible, I think, when you're working and when you're people love that. I mean they find it difficult. I mean, because some of us like to be more in control. Right. But and then the flexibility of changing plan and adapting and right, right.

Robert 8:10

So actually with the priest, when we started, uh we would pray, excuse me, each day, um, and our our father, Hail Mary, glory be, uh, for the place to stay. And so each night we, you know, we felt that Providence was playing a role. And each night we kind of met someone who seemed to uh um not need, but was very interested in speaking with the priest, you know, about faith and about life. And then at some juncture, I forget exactly where, they were like, Matt, we're gonna stop booking.com. I was like, what? And then so so then after that, not so many beautiful talks, but a lot of nice alberges, you know. So there's a trade-off. What are you gonna do?

Margaret 8:51

It gets busier as you get closer to center. That's true. Dodgy's a bit dodgy.

Robert 8:56

It's dodgy, but that but that's what makes for a good adventure. Yes, you can't find a place, you end up, you know. I just talked to a young man from Texas. He ended up in an albergue after praying, and uh he he um I guess detected bed bugs. So they got up, they went outside, they they had a little council for them, and they went off and slept in a in a vineyard. What's better than that? You know, that's beautiful. So that's part of it. Um, this is a great service. So, how many people would you say you see in a week or so?

Sr. Mary 9:29

Oh gosh, that's hard because every single day is different. Yeah. Um possibly in a week. Would we see fifty? So the mass, you'll get more people to the mass than so maybe like come up here so it's almost lunchtime. So they're hungry. So today there were about ten. I think yesterday there were seven. Um seven or eight people now, because this is the low season for English speakers. Oh ninety percent of the people coming in today, there are one thousand five hundred pilgrims have arrived today, it said on the thing downstairs. Ninety percent of those would be Spaniards. Wow.

Robert 10:16

Because they say 49% of uh Spaniards do the Camino over the course of a year. Yeah. I don't know if that's true.

Sr. Mary 10:22

Oh, I don't know. You say 12% Americans. I've usually been here in October, and then the English speakers from England to Ireland, and maybe the states, um, tend to come down when it's not quite as hot.

Robert 10:36

That's good. It was well, it was warm this summer, too. I was like a couple of albergues. I think I lost a pound or two. Oh, they say it's really tough, right?

Sr. Mary 10:52

Yes.

Robert 10:56

Wow, I've never really heard of that one. Maybe one person I met did that. My favorite section is the meseta from Burgos to Leon. I've done I love that's what I said, so I recommended that to the the uh Dominicans. I said, well, let's do that, then we'll go to Saria and we'll finish there. But I absolutely love the meseta because the the the wheat and this year there were massive uh fields of sunflowers. Massive. Yeah. Yes, and on the French route, of course, you get such a variety, don't you? So I I did it the Camino along the French route, but over stages, so I went back one stage each time over the last ten years. Oh wow, that's wonderful. Um but I have about five days to do on the Meseta. Oh really?

Sr. Mary 11:41

Still there.

Robert 11:42

Well, I may do it next year with my granddaughter, she'll be ten.

Sr. Mary 11:45

Okay. Okay, we'll meet along.

Robert 11:49

You'll love my granddaughter. She's so nice. Yeah. Yeah, I just love it. Because the wheat and then the Eucharist, and there's just a you know, it's time to really s really go deep into prayer. You know, there's no better place.

Sr. Mary 12:02

Another thing we have here is um which is new this year, is a little powerpoint about the story of St. James, so that people just a practical thing about the history and so on, but a more meditative, contemplative um powerpoint is running downstairs in the chapel. You know, the chapel when you come into the pilgrim office, it would have been a chapel in the time when the sisters had the whole building. Oh wow. Um there's m our masses at 10.30, there's a mass in German at 8 and in French at 9.15. Ours in English is at 10.30. Okay. And there's a Polish mass now at four o'clock. Um but uh during the day, in between the mass times, there's a very beautiful um PowerPoint that was produced by um our group, Camino Companions, but it's in English and Spanish, and people of different nationalities um sit and can order a power order a copy of it um online. Um, sit and watch it. Okay, that's it. It costs about 20 minutes and it rolls through the day.

Robert 13:08

Oh, that's awesome.

Sr. Mary 13:14

Yeah. And another new thing this year might be the keeping the Camino alive back home, because a lot of people are trying to kind of resurrect this um experience. And so a Jesuit um called Brenda McManus and the sister who started this project, Catherine O'Flynn, have produced this little booklet. Oh, it's beautiful, and we have a sheet for people who don't want the whole booklet um with a summary of just Ignatian tips really as well about doing the just being grateful, doing the examine at the end of the day, that kind of thing. But it's that's very appreciated.

Robert 13:55

No, that's wonderful. And this brings structure to to people's lives back home. You go back home and you're like, you know, I have the spirit of the Camino, what do I what do I do with it? And then this brings structure to it. That's awesome, that's beautiful.

Sr. Mary 14:07

Because both the people have experience of the Camino themselves. Brenda McMahon has has written several books on the Camino. Really? Oh wow. Um, so it's coming out of a lived experience, and people um do appreciate it.

Robert 14:22

Well, I w I wrote a big uh a book piece of fiction about the Camino, but it's uh it's not published yet. It's called Um A Walk with Wilson Burroughs. It's about a parole officer who takes three juvenile delinquents on the Camino, which is trad you know, to uh commute their sentences. And uh so they walk it. But it's really about the main character is uh Shorty Lopez, and he has an encounter with uh the question, does God exist? For him, that's that's really what the story is about, you know, his encounter with that question, because prior to the the uh Camino, he really didn't have any uh he wasn't cognizant of the uh of the divine.

Sr. Mary 14:58

So sometimes get um today for instance we had a Buddhist who came in and I think in the last few weeks there have been at least three Buddhists. Um but people of faith or uh of exploration, of looking for faith. Right. Somebody um who described himself as a non-theist at one point, but searching for meaning.

Robert 15:25

Right, right. You find that last year I was walking with a bunch of gentlemen who weren't in particular they weren't you know associated with the faith, but they were searching. Yes you know, and I was much I was like, you guys really, you know, you're definitely there the the whole group was searching. I said, I got an answer for you.

Sr. Mary 15:42

Especially when people are walking alone. Yes.

Robert 15:47

Do you recommend that walking alone?

Sr. Mary 15:49

Yes, I I prefer it for myself. Um I've never felt unsafe. Um I've walked alone but always within sight of people. You have to be sensible. But I I like the space and the time for personal reflection. But it's quite nice to meet people, um, socialise in the evening or en route. But I personally appreciate the time for reflection. And for me it has to be alone. Otherwise, I can't do two things at the same time, so I'm concentrating on conversing with somebody or um trying to yeah, otherwise for me I prefer to go. It would be more of a challenge to do it with somebody else. For me, right, right.

Robert 16:35

No, I hear that.

Margaret 16:37

This morning we were talking just amongst us about the you know, the walking camino compared to a silent retreat, for example. So we were saying that you know the Camino in a sense, you want to you probably the morning is your most reflexive time, but then it starts getting tougher and your feet getting sore and you're hungry, and that's when it's good to actually be with someone because it's talking a bit more. Right, no, you need it you need the support. So it's so we were saying, you know, the advantages of you know a walking experience compared to a silent retreat where you feel like you know you know you have to stay silent and you know all day, and that can be perhaps less sort of uh joyful and I actually if I had my druthers, I would rather walk alone because I tend to be more of a journeying person instead of a goal-oriented person.

Robert 17:30

And so I might never get there though. That's my problem. You know, I start oh stay here, I'll talk to you. So I do have some issues. But uh, but this year the the Dominicans, you know how they are, they were very, very focused, and um they had a lot of uh you know critiques about a lot of lots of things, very tomistic. And so it was a very good experience because I love St. Dominic. And uh, but I'm married with four kids, so I I do my best.

Margaret 17:57

Um but it was great to see young people as well. I mean young women and who are choosing to do it on their own. I mean, they're just I want to do it alone, I want to have this experience. So that this is something people are wanting to do.

Robert 18:09

There's no yeah.

Margaret 18:10

Yeah, so it's not that they're you know don't have anybody they could do it with, because they definitely do, but you know, no, I want to do this alone, I want to have this time.

Robert 18:18

Right, right. I recommend that. If I if someone asked, I'd say yes, absolutely, go up, go on your own, you know, and uh you learn a lot about yourself. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate um your you know and what you do. In the past. We're just very, very in uh inhibited, very introverted people. No, I don't know. You know when you don't know, you know when you don't know, and so you don't know if it's you have no idea and we didn't pursue it, and so I'm not sure, but I'm here today. You know if there's someone we can uh encourage people because you're gonna be able to do that. Yeah, we didn't we don't come and they're crying, which you know sometimes we are, you know, then the people at the desks will definitely send them up.

Margaret 19:08

Right.

Sr. Mary 19:08

But um, the possibility in the afternoon at three o'clock, if somebody wants to deepen the conversation, is more general after mass. Um but that group of people who come after mass would be people who are maybe practicing or searching, or that they have a sense they've maybe discovered churches on the Camino. Um but we also advertise you know for our three o'clock session as well for people who can who want to deepen. We have a selection of poems and um scripture passages and things which we can give out to people as well.

Robert 19:51

I love it, it's awesome, it's very beautiful. Yeah, definitely. I mean, scripture and and poetry definitely go uh hand in hand with the the Camino. All right, thank you, and of course, Buen Camino.