Pilgrimage: A Journey of Transformation

Stage 9 – Logroño to Nájera.

The Walk.

Leaving Logroño, we are reminded that we are walking through La Rioja.  There are miles and miles of vineyards.  As we walked, we encountered a man tending the grapes who explained how the vines were carefully pruned to produce healthy grapes.  These are not the wild grapes of Isaiah 5:2.¹ These are beautifully cared for vineyards.  They will dominate our walk until the grain fields take over again – around Belorado.  Just outside of Navarrete, we saw the ruins of the hospital and albergue of San Juan de Acre, founded in 1185 by Doña Maria Ramirez to care for pilgrims on the way to Santiago.  Her son, a bishop, built an adjoining gothic church – reminding us of the connection between hospitality and faith.  We spent the night in Navarrete.

The next day we walked to Nájera.  In Nájera, we visited the monastery of Santa María la Real.  The monastery was founded in 1052, at the site of a cave discovered during a hunting trip by a Spanish king looking for his falcon.  Inside the cave, he found an image of the Virgin Mary with fresh lilies and a bell, all lit by a lamp.  Today, the monastery is a beautiful church run by the Franciscans.  The cave is preserved within the church – set up to look like it did the day it was discovered. 

Nájera is a town with much history – including the fact that Saint Ignatius of Loyola stopped here on his way to Manresa.  On the day we entered the town, it was Palm Sunday.  As we walked around, people were leaving mass with their blessed palms.  It was a celebration – the beginning of Semana Santa.  I felt happy to a part of the celebration.

Palm Sunday                

Palm Sunday is a celebration of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem.

[T]hey brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”²

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I understand my faith and what it means to reflect God into the world by being open to the meaning of Jesus.  Jesus begins his ministry by announcing the nearness of the Kingdom of God.  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.”³ This fulfilment of the kingdom of God is present in Palm Sunday when Jesus enters Jerusalem in fulfilment of the prophet Zechariah.⁴ 

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Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
Humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey. . . .

and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.⁵

Waiting for God to rescue Israel and reign as King was a common theme within the religious literature and culture during the time of Jesus.⁶ Fulfilling Israel’s hope, Palm Sunday shows Jesus enacting God’s return to Jerusalem – rescuing Israel and bringing forth a new kingdom where God reigns.⁷ But Jesus, through his ministry and his symbolic entrance into Jerusalem, was modeling a new way to be Israel.  Jesus was asking his disciples to follow him into a new way of life – a life where we work for the Kingdom of God.⁸

Living authentically as a Christian requires us to understand the meaning of Jesus and his ministry.  In entering Jerusalem, Jesus re-centers worship from the power of the Temple to a community of people called to love and do justice.  The heart of Jesus’ community of believers are the poor, the hungry, the meek, those who mourn, and those who are merciful.⁹ This is the Kingdom of God.  This is what we are asked to reflect into the world.  We celebrate Jesus and re-dedicate ourselves to creating a community of love and mercy on Palm Sunday.   

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1. Isaiah 5:2: “Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.” (NRSV). ↩︎
2. Mark 11:7-10 (NRSV). ↩︎
3. Mark 1:14. ↩︎
4. N.T. Wright and Michael F Bird, The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians (London, Great Britain: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 2019), 229. ↩︎
5. Zechariah 9:9-10 (NSRV). ↩︎
6. Wright and Bird, 233. ↩︎
7. Wright and Bird, 237. ↩︎
8. Wright and Bird, 206-207. ↩︎
9. Wright and Bird, 207; Matthew. 5:1-9; Luke 6:20-21. ↩︎