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.
Today I had to make a heartbreaking decision, but the announcement by archbishop Justin Welby didn’t leave me any other choice.
I hereby resign from my post of lay coordinator for the Church of England Camino Chaplaincy here in Santiago de Compostela as well from being a member of the Church of England.
The reason: Archbishop Justin Welby announced some days ago that he will take a sabbatical of three months starting July next year.
For those that don’t know this, a sabbatical is a combination of vacation and study time for, in this context, clergy that they are entitled to have every ten years.
Don’t get me wrong, I wholly approve of clergy taking time off to re-charge their batteries. But for the primate (leader) of the Church of England, this is not the time. Yes, take a holiday, spend time with your loved ones and re-charge your batteries, +Justin. But not for THREE MONTHS! And NOT during the worst time humanity has gone through in ages, and will go through for a long time to come!
By planning to take THREE MONTHS off you show a blatant disregard for Jesus’ teaching. Jesus took time off for a few days, retired to the wilderness BUT then he came back to serve those that needed him most. And he never took time off the cross …
By indulging yourself in this amount of time off and personal study of your favourite subject, +Justin, you show me just one thing – That you don’t care.
You don’t care about your clergy struggling to provide pastoral care in any safe way possible.
You don’t care about Matthew 25, because if you did, you would have established a food bank at Lambeth Palace a long time ago – and volunteered in it.
As a church leader you are called to lead, announcing that you’re planning to take a sabbatical during one of the most challenging times we all, in the UK and everywhere in the world, are passing through shows such a disregard for your own ministry – and it makes me furious.
One more thing: How many people that work in the frontline can afford to take three months off? Nurses, first responders, any emergency stuff. NONE of them!
So, take your sabbatical, take your time off, and discover that when YOU are back we’re gone because the sheep don’t follow an unfaithful shepherd, they follow one that cares about them. Or, even more importantly, they follow a shepherd that doesn’t treat them as sheep …
I am committed to following Jesus, are you +Justin?
In one short sentence – You failed to help to build the kingdom of God and I can’t be anymore a member of the church you are the archbishop of, nor to support it as I have done in the past.
Egeria House Future
I don’t know really, I still will strife to facilitate services for pilgrims that are hopefully coming this next year. I hope to welcome them and, perhaps, it is time to think about an Ecumenical Camino Chaplaincy. I will continue to provide any practical help I can to both my neighbours and pilgrims. And with the help of God, as long as I live, there will always be an Egeria House here in Santiago where those to ring the doorbell will find a helping hand …
Keep safe and sane everybody, tired and sad hugs from Santiago, SY
It’s incredibly difficult, to sum up, the last few months here in Santiago, on the Caminos and in Spain in general. So, please forgive me if this blog post runs a bit long and contains a lot of links to places where you can find more background information. I have also tried to structure it a bit by topics so that you can skip those that don’t interest you …
General Situation here in Spain and Santiago
At the time of writing, beginning of October 2020, we are firmly in the grip of the second wave here in Spain (actual figures >>>here<<< ). Whilst we are not back in full lockdown, mobility for non-essential travel has been restricted in places like Léon, Barcelona, and Madrid. I try my best to keep this page https://egeria.house/camino-corona-updates/ updated with the latest info about how these restrictions affect pilgrims currently on a Camino.
Our main restrictions here in Santiago refer to how many people from different households can meet up, restricted opening hours, restricted number of people allowed inside of shops and restaurants, restricted number of people allowed to gather outside as a group, obligation to wear a mask when outside your own home (the only exception is when you are eating or drinking something), keeping to social distancing at all time, hand sanitizer everywhere and so on.
Sometimes I feel like I live in a hospital for infectious diseases, with all the patients moving around, trying to keep their distance and wearing masks. My ‘social’ life has been pretty much reduced to online and the last time I hugged one of my friends was at the beginning of March. I am fully aware that a lot of people have it far, far worse than I do. I live in a cozy, bright flat with a balcony, I have enough to eat, and so on. All my basic needs are well covered and for that, I am truly thankful. But I still worry about my friends and I worry about where and how this all will end. OK, enough of doom and gloom, back to Chaplaincy and Camino updates!
Anglican Camino Chaplaincy
Beginning of April 2020 we took the planned program online, in a matter of speaking. Apart from providing material, both written and video/audio, for Easter we then also asked the chaplains that were meant to be here in Santiago de Compostela at certain dates, to provide ‘something’ during those dates for me to post here and on Facebook in the hope that it helps pilgrims stuck at home.
The church of Santa Susana might be empty now, but it will be waiting for us …
As for 2021, a few days ago I had a phone conversation with Father Bob Bates, our lead chaplain, about the possible future of the chaplaincy next year. Before I tell you the result, here are some facts you might or might not know:
A large number of our volunteers are retired, meaning they are at least in one high-risk group, that of age.
Most of our volunteers come from the UK and the USA, both countries with different travel/quarantine restrictions that make it difficult to come over for a two-week volunteering stint and/or traveling back home.
The number of non-Spanish pilgrims, and especially of those that come from English speaking countries, has been very low in the three months since the Camino re-opened in July 2020. Take September, for example, a month that traditionally sees a lot of retired, foreign pilgrims that enjoy the cooler, but not yet cold, weather and the slightly quieter season.
In September 2019, a total of 45,653 pilgrims were registered by the Pilgrim’s Office here, this year the number was 10,441, so less than 25% of last years’ pilgrims. And if we look at the numbers of non-Spaniards, September 2019 saw 29,224 of them, and this year only 3,166, just over 10% compared to 2019. And in October, so far, we have seen between 200-300 pilgrims arriving each day, in 2019 the daily average for October was >1,000 pilgrims.
If we now look at the possible number of non-Roman Catholic pilgrims like outlined here: https://egeria.house/how-many-protestants-are-on-the-camino-de-santiago/ with an educated guesstimate of 10-15% of pilgrims coming from a Protestant background of any shape or form then we can ‘assume’ that less than 150 pilgrims MIGHT have been interested in the offerings of an Anglican Camino Chaplaincy here in Santiago de Compostela during the whole month of September 2020.
Experience from our two previous years shows that of those, perhaps 10% (being optimistic here) actually came in the past to one of our services or events. Now comes what I call the >Crystal Ball< bit:
How and What do we Best Plan for 2021?
Bearing all this in mind Father Bob and I have decided to offer some online worship material, reflections, sermons, and the like, for the major feast days like Advent and Christmas during the wintertime. We also think that it would be premature to even contemplate a ‘normal’ in-person chaplaincy for the first half of 2021. Instead, we will invite chaplains to do the same as this year, putting together material for pilgrims to reflect on and putting them up online again. We hope and pray that there is still a chance of some chaplains coming here to Santiago for the second half of 2021, but really, only God knows …
It is with a heavy heart that I am writing this, but the combination of all the above plus the complexity of keeping pilgrims and chaplaincy volunteers safe during this pandemic is simply too much. Add to that the problem of how to house the chaplaincy volunteers, which typically come for two weeks, whilst maintaining social distancing if they would stay with me as some have done in the past.
And for those who wonder what happened to the donations / the fundraised money for the Anglican Camino Chaplaincy 2020, it’s sitting safely in the UK account of the Diocese in Europe, waiting to be used when and if an in-person chaplaincy is possible again.
Holy Year 2021
More, general, information about what the Holy Year is can be found here:
As for 2021, the only thing we know for sure is that it will start, as always, with the opening of the Holy Door on 31st December. How many people will be allowed to attend the ceremony, will depend on the pandemic situation on that date.
Also undecided is if the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela will ask the Pope to extend the Holy Year into 2022. This decision will be made ‘closer to the time’ is what I ‘hear’ coming out of the archbishop’s office via our local media. A similar prolongation has been granted in the past, in 1885/86 to celebrate the re-discovery and the confirmation of the authenticity of the relics and in 1937/38 because of the Civil War here in Spain. So, again, we wait and see.
As for expected numbers in 2021, that is another ‘crystal ball topic’ and again, only God knows the answer to that one. BC (Before Covid), the expectation was that at least 500,000 pilgrims would be coming, plus several millions of visitors and tourists to the city. The only sure thing is that this number will be far, far lower. Not only due to travel restrictions, quarantine regulations in some countries, and general uncertainty, but also due to the economic downturn that has affected the livelihood and income of so many. Many that want to come will not be allowed to and many others simply can’t afford it anymore.
Pilgrims and Hospitality
Beginning of July, when the Caminos re-opened, I re-arranged my ‘pilgrim’s room’ to offer emergency accommodation if and when needed. At that moment our Covid numbers here in Santiago were very low and it felt safe to do so. I also made the decision that I only would give hospitality to pilgrims that had absolutely no other place to go, I didn’t want to make any competition to already struggling albergues and the like. That meant only ‘me or under the bridge’ cases.
Also, if somebody would have stayed with me, it would have meant keeping to social distancing and wearing a mask at all times, not easy in a relatively small flat. But nobody needed this kind of hospitality during the summer and so I ‘folded’ the pilgrim’s room together by end of September. Ironically, just the day after, I had a request. But by then our numbers had increased badly again and it didn’t feel safe to do so. But no worries, the pilgrim didn’t need to sleep in the streets, between Pilgrim House https://pilgrimhousesantiago.com/ and me we found a good, safe place for her to stay.
This was the past, but it will be also the future, somewhere, some when …
Meeting Up with Pilgrims
One of the joys of previous years has always been meeting up with pilgrims and listening to their stories and experiences. This has happened a few times also this year, mainly outdoors and following all the guidelines. I enjoyed every single one of these meetings and if there is one thing I take away from it is that all pilgrims I spoke to said that they felt safer on the Camino in Spain than in their own country of residence.
Praying has been one of the few things that I can still do for pilgrims without any limits, so if you have a prayer request, please send them to me, see: https://egeria.house/let-us-pray-for-you/ for more information.
Camino Situation
The Camino re-opened beginning of July when travel across international and provincial borders was once again allowed. Sadly, many albergues couldn’t re-open this year, either because of their volunteer situation, again, many retirees there, or because they didn’t survive the lockdown financially and are now up for sale or looking for a new tenant. This made the accommodation situation for pilgrims this, short, season often complicated.
Generally speaking albergues and other hospitality places here in Spain follow the guidelines very strictly and expect the pilgrims to do the same. There have been extremely few cases where that didn’t work out well. So, in general, if following our guidelines, walking a Camino is one of the safest activities we still can do. For a recent blog by two pilgrims that walked the Camino Francés in August/September 2020 for a good cause, have a look >>>here<<<.
Some quick points if you’re planning a Camino in Covid times:
Always follow the travel guidelines and advice of your own country.
Make sure that your travel and health insurance covers Covid and repatriation.
Reserve accommodation and/or make sure to call ahead to see if they are open.
Have a plan B in place before you run into difficulties.
Budget more money than you would normally do, to pay for unexpected hotel stays, taxi rides, and so on.
Keep your eyes and ears on the local news, regarding possible new restrictions.
Follow all the guidelines and laws (face masks, social distancing, hand washing, and so on).
Additionally to what I mentioned above, if you plan to walk a Camino this winter, you need also to consider that a lot of albergues will close earlier, open later or not be open at all. The following website http://www.aprinca.com/alberguesinvierno/ shows, from November onwards, which albergues are open on the Camino Francés. The information on it is as accurate as the information given to the people that maintain the website, so if you notice that something needs updating, please email them!
Personal Situation – Or what do I do now here in Santiago?
As I wrote here: https://egeria.house/lock-down-thoughts-from-santiago-1/ the place I am living at now was only meant to be my winter flat for 2019/20. I am still here and will stay here at least until March/April 2021. If and when the FCJ sisters and their volunteers return, I will need to find a new place to live, hopefully with our volunteers.
I am still working as a freelance writer, I have published a new book (fiction and nothing to do with the Camino) and I am working on a new book, this one about the Camino. If you are interested in my writings, my author page can be found here: https://amzn.to/3iJXiuR
The background story can be found here: https://egeria.house/a-box-of-kindness/ The box has long moved inside the house entrance, which has advantages and disadvantages, but as spring came and the weather got warmer, it was just too limited what I could put into it. The other advantage is that I can speak with those that ring the doorbell and know now better what they really need, like diapers/nappies for their children or fresh fruit and vegetables. Yes, Spain has a social security net, but some people still fall through it.
I think that covers all for the moment, one last request, as I pray for you here in Santiago, please pray for all of us here in Santiago from wherever you are.
Buen Camino de la Vida and I hope to see you all again here in Santiago or on a Camino,
Camino Chaplaincy Meditation, July 5, 2020, The Reverend Sean Ferrell
The Reverend Sean Ferrell was to serve as a volunteer chaplain for the Anglican Chaplaincy for the Camino de Santiago de Compostela this week, receiving pilgrims and celebrating the Eucharist from July 1-11, 2020. This is a reflection, prepared for the Chaplaincy to put online since the COVID-19 Pandemic has interrupted in person ministry. The reflection is about carrying burdens, and it is based on Matthew 11:25-30, and reflects on carrying rocks for 345 miles along the Camino Francés, from St Jean Pied de Port, France, to Cruz de Ferro, in June of 2019.
As many of us are stuck at home and long for the Camino, we want to offer you a place to share prayers, thoughts and reflections during these challenging times. No matter which faith you come from. We don’t have the answers, but we are here to listen and share. Our next online meeting will be tomorrow, Easter Sunday, 12th April 2020 at 17:00 Spanish time. We normally chat for about 20 – 30 minutes and then end with a short service, time of prayer, a reflection or similar.
The meeting will take place on Zoom, so it might be a good idea to download it beforehand, if you haven’t done so already, and familiarize yourself with it. As all of this is new to us, we will keep it simple, much like the Open House meetings we used to have here in Santiago. So, please make yourself comfortable, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea and join us tomorrow with the following details:
I’d be a very wealthy person if I got
a cent every time some one asks me, “Why do you walk the pilgrimage
to Santiago de Compostela when you aren’t a Catholic?”
My usual answer is, “Because Santiago wasn’t a Catholic either, or a protestant, or an orthodox, or a Baptist, or a {insert favourite Christian label here}.”
A symbol of Ecumenism, we are all in the same boat …
Santiago, Saint James the Greater in
the bible, was one of the very first followers of Jesus. He heard the
Good News and it turned his life around. He left behind everything he
once held dear and started to spread the Word. The simple truth that
“you are a beloved child of God”. Or, as I often put it, at the
very heart of my faith is this: God loves us, everything else is
secondary.
It is a lengthy document, but I would
like to draw your attention to this paragraph which made my heart
sing with gratitude:
“The Catholic Church also becomes a pilgrim with other Churches and ecclesial communities so that the unity of all Christians becomes effective. The body of Christ cannot be divided. Therefore, ecumenism is a sacred duty for us. This takes us beyond manifestations of good intentions, also requiring concrete initiatives. Thus, in our city of Santiago, they share the same sacred space, a small church, Anglicans, Orthodox and Protestants, so that the same Spirit that makes us Christians, helps us to live communion among us by pilgrimage towards unity.”
The significance of this statement
can’t be overstated. It is of historic importance.
The acknowledgment that we all form the
body of Christ, no matter from which church background we come from
and the firm commitment to a common pilgrimage towards unity put such
a joyful smile onto my face!
So, thank you Don Julián for all the support you have given the Anglican Camino Chaplaincy https://egeria.house/anglican-camino-chaplaincy-2020/ in the past and let’s continue a pilgrimage towards Christian unity. We have already come a long Camino, but there is still a long way to go until the sad division of churches is a thing of the past.
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