Pilgrimage: A Journey of Transformation

Stage 8 – Los Arcos to Logroño

The Walk

Today we complete the first part of our Pilgrimage. We walked from Los Arcos to Logroño. It is another lovely walk. On either side of the path were fields of grain. I walked a little way with a woman that was from Northern Spain. She told me about how the fields had changed from the green of spring to the golden color of May.

We stopped in Viana, which is a quaint village just outside of Logroño. All the pilgrims arrive around 2pm – for Comida. The town is full of life in the afternoon. Everyone is eating and drinking and laughing. Some people choose to spend the night in Viana – others continue their walk after their meal. But everyone is together for Comida – it was one of those times when you could feel the community of the Camino.

My group spent the night in Viana. It meant that the next day we enjoyed a short walk to Logroño. It was a great choice because it gave us a full day in Logroño. We visited the wine museums – there are several. We spent the afternoon at a restaurant – outdoor table – in a plaza where a local opera group was singing arias from the Marriage of Figaro. Instead of dinner, we had tapas and wine. On our way back to the hotel, we found an empanada stand. Wine museums, opera, and empanadas – it doesn’t get better than this.

Reflecting on Our Pilgrimage

The walk to Logroño gave me time to re-center my goals for this Pilgrimage. During the first 10 days, I had time to experience the creative and life-giving force of God into the world. I felt God’s presence in the green of our forest walk from Roncesvalles to Zubiri. I felt God’s strength in the deeply rooted trees of the forest. I heard the birds sing as we walked, finding their home in the trees. “By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches” (Psalm 104:12).

As I walked, I was reminded not to rush – that God is found in the present moment. Walking along the River Arga, I contemplated the fact that, like the river, God moves at His own pace. Pilgrimage is about the journey – saying yes to God and allowing God to break through to our hearts. We walk slowly, waiting patiently for God to break through.

If our Pilgrimage ended in Logroño, we will have learned to re-experience God in our lives. It may result in our feeling better about our faith and ourselves. However, the experience will not be real – or lasting – unless we learn to anchor our spirituality to our Christian faith. For that reason, we will walk the next part of our Camino Pilgrimage focused on the Gospels and the mystery of the Church. To help us, we will walk during Semana Santa and the Holy Season of Easter. We will also explore the major Cathedrals of Castilla and Leon.

Karl Rahner describes God’s grace as part of the innermost core of human existence. He believes that human beings are made to be unequivocally open to God as the absolute mystery, and because God, today as well as throughout history, continually communicates Himself to us. This grace of self-communication is God’s offer to us, which we can either accept or reject.¹

Although human beings continually seek meaning in life, we only find that meaning if we accept God’s self-communication – or grace. As we continue our Pilgrimage, we will look to the Gospels to find the ways that we experience God’s grace. By focusing on the Gospels, we learn that true faith is not focused on us. It is focused away from us – towards those who embody the heart of our faith – and our Church. Specifically, to experience a true and lasting faith, we must heed the call of the Gospels to center on care of others – especially those who are poor, those who have been marginalized, and those who find themselves as migrants in a foreign land – because that is where God exists. “[F]or I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me . . .” (Matthew 25:34-36).

1. Karl Rahner, Faith in a Wintry Season: Conversations and Interviews with Karl Rahner in the Last Years of His Life (Paul Imhof and Hubert Biallowons eds. New York, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991) 21, 25. ↩︎