Author: SY

Help for Camino People

Update in progress! There have been a lot of questions how to help people that live on and have their business on the Camino. So I decided to compile a list as those cases come to my attention. Choose your case and donate directly to it and if you know of another place that needs help, please contact me: https://egeria.house/contact/

Camino Associations and Charities

The following organisations maintain albergues on the Caminos and/or help albergues to stay afloat in this difficult times. To see what each one does additionally, click through to their website.

Camino Francés

Via de la Plata & Camino Mozárabe

Camino del Norte

Donativo Albergue “Tu Casa” – Vega de Ribadesella – PayPal link: https://www.paypal.me/TuCasaVega

Camino Primitivo

Camino Portugues

Santiago de Compostela & Miscellaneous

Let’s help each other …

Tales from Two Houses

Some time ago Dave Whitsun from the Camino Podcast contacted me and asked if I would agree to an interview, and, after giving it some thought, I said yes. Below the result. The Podcast is entitled ‘Tales from Two Houses’ because it first features and interview with Nate and Faith from Pilgrim House and then my bit regarding all the different versions Egeria House has gone through over the last few years. After the Podcast, you find a very short list of links that you might find helpful.

Links:

www.pilgrimhousesantiago.com

www.littlefreepantry.org

And yes, here is also the link to my own Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/S-Yates/e/B00A9YUYQ2

I went to the Cathedral Today

I walked through the Holy Door.

I was blinded by all the gold, recently polished.

It was too much.

And all that glitter didn’t reflect anything.

I went to the Cathedral Today

I couldn’t go up to give a hug to my friend, but I could go down,

Kneeling on the cold stone floor before his tomb.

I went to the cathedral today

Praying for all of us.

Praying for those that I am not able to hug.

Holding in my heart those that need a hug.

Holding on to myself – barely.

Praying to be shown the next yellow arrow …

I went to the Cathedral Today

But I didn’t leave the house.

I went in spirit, but I was too afraid to go in body.

Perhaps tomorrow …

Shattered Dreams

I wrote this during the first wave of the pandemic, but for reasons unknown, never published it. Today I came across it again and thought now might be the time to share it:

We live in a world of shattered dreams:

  • Shattered dreams of walking a Camino any time soon again.
  • Shattered dreams to keep our loved ones close and save.
  • Shattered dreams of a normality as we used to know it.

In that shattered world we now live in, I remember the words of a priest friend here in Santiago:

  • Be brave, tell somebody: I care about you!
  • Be brave, tell somebody: I forgive you!
  • Be brave, tell somebody: I hold you and yours close in my thoughts and prayers.

Because that is all we can offer each other just now:

  • A thought
  • A prayer
  • A dream that we might meet again.

The whole world is shattered and we don’t know where we go from here.

The yellow arrows are hidden.

We have to take the yellow arrows we learned about in the past now into the sad reality that is today’s world – and make the best we can out of our past experiences, for a better future for all of us.

What we have learned on the Camino we now need to apply in this strange world we woke up to.

  • To share what we have.
  • To discard what we don’t need.
  • And, most importantly, to forgive ourselves and others.

This is not a time to hold grudges, but a time to hold hands, virtually and safely, to confirm one single thing:

We are pilgrims and we are in this storm together.

We can build a better world together.

If we stick and work together.

This is the time to stay physically apart so that when we meet again, nobody is missing.

Properly distanced hugs from Santiago, SY

The Caminos de Santiago – An Ecumenical Opportunity

Since my first journey in that winter of the Holy Year 1999, fellow pilgrims have kept asking me: “But if you’re not Catholic, why do you make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela?”

And for more then 20 years my answer has always been the same: “Because Santiago was not a Catholic either, he was a follower of Jesus Christ, simply a Christian.”

The Apostle Saint James, the friend of the Lord, lived before the sad separation of the churches, at a time when

“All the believers lived together and had everything in common;”

Acts 2:44

That sounds like the experience we have had as pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. And that is why I believe that the Camino de Santiago is an opportunity par excellence for ecumenism.

On the Camino we can have conversations about our faith that we rarely have in our daily lives. Conversations about our different experiences and practices but more than anything else about what we have in common: The difficulties of living our faith in an increasingly secular world. The miracles of every day. Our trust in God.

The simple practices of living each day with Jesus and how we do that on a very practical and personal level.

But with this joy of sharing always comes a deep mourning that we cannot share the sacrament that all Christians have in common – the Eucharist.

I know, there are good reasons for this, but it hurts, it hurts a lot when I am in the cathedral and, just before the distribution of the body of Christ I hear those words: “That only Catholics can come to receive.”

I have a dream – That one day we can all participate in Holy Communion in the cathedral and in all the churches of the world, no matter what church we come from, because it is the Lord who invites us and who knows our hearts. And He makes us worthy to receive Himself.

I have a dream – To hear those words “All Christians are welcome at the Lord’s table!”

Paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr. …

The first Christians were known as the ‘followers of the way’ as Saint Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles and the word pilgrim comes from the Latin ‘peregrinus’ which means he or she who crosses foreign lands as a free citizen – another thing we have in common.

We are all pilgrims to the eternal homeland – the heavenly Jerusalem, the new world where there is no mourning, no tears, only eternal joy in the presence of God!

At the end of his days on this earth Jesus prayed:

“… So that they may all be one. Like you, Father, in me and I in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ”

John 17:21

How can we tell non-believers that following Jesus is the best Way if we don’t walk together? For more than 20 years, each of my pilgrimages was dedicated to that: The unity of all Christians. Each step of my pilgrim feet was a prayer for that …

After this year that we have lived through, full of losses of loved ones and dreams, my prayer is:

Lord, help us each day to grow closer to you and to each other, do not allow the division between the churches to deepen, but help us to grow each day closer to our brothers and sisters, so that one day we can all participate all in the same Eucharist that nourishes us all.