This is Tom and Emily again. They were in a blog post from the Meseta.
Tom is 78 years old and has a bum hip. Emily is 23. They are from Boston. Tom’s wife was dying of cancer and Emily was her caregiver. On her deathbed, Tom’s wife made him promise her that he would do a pilgrimage on the Camino and she made Emily promise to go with him and help him. They both have the deepest and strongest faith of anyone I have met along the Way. I was doing a walking tour of the exterior of the Cathedral when I heard someone scream my name. When this happens, and you might be surprised to know how often this happens, I have become conditioned to run away as fast as my feet will carry me, screaming: “Whatever it was I didn’t do it!” In this case Emily tackled me before I could even begin to beat a hasty retreat. I was thrilled to see them and I was overjoyed to see that they had completed their pilgrimage. I showed them the backpack storage place and a good place to get breakfast and then met them in the Cathedral for the noon Pilgrim mass. This is the main altar at the Santiago Cathedral.
This is one of those open air confessionals at the Santiago Cathedral.
I have 50 years of sins to confess. I can’t even begin to do that out in public kneeling on those hard wooden kneelers. I would prefer to confess over a nice meal with a good bottle of wine🍷. My confession is going to take some time and I would think the priest would want to get comfortable while he listens to the story of my journey down the road to perdition over the past 50 years. So I took a pass on a public confession at the Cathedral and decided that attending Mass would at least stem the inexorable whirlpool pulling me down to the netherworld.
The guy on the right is Father Juan, the Bishop’s assistant, who officiated at the Mass.
After the Mass was over St. Christopher lit a candle for Anna and the Three Amigos and Emily and Tom said a prayer 🙏 for her recovery. Then I took Emily and Tom to the Sushi 🍣 place.
We each got a big bowl of steaming hot soup and had a delightful chit chat about our Camino adventures.
After lunch was over we went to the Cathedral Square for the obligatory celebratory pictures.
Then it was on to the Pilgrim Office.
We had to go to the Pilgrim Office to get our Certificate of Distance that documents where you started your pilgrimage and how far you travelled and our Compostela, or certificate of pilgrimage completion.
In order to qualify for a Compostela you must establish that you are a bona fide pilgrim, that you walked at least the last 100 kilometers, or for pilgrims who rode bicycles or horses, the last 200 kilometers, for religious/spiritual reasons and collected in your pilgrim credencial at least two sellos, stamps in Spanish, each day. In order to qualify for a Certificate of Distance you must have at least one sello in your pilgrim credencial from your starting point and one sello from each place you spent the night along the Way. So your pilgrim credencial and the sellos in your pilgrim credencial are a BIG deal. This is the first stamp I got in my pilgrim credencial.
I got this stamp from the Front Range Chapter of the American Pilgrims on the Camino, in Denver.
I got my last stamp or sello at the Pilgrim Office here in Santiago.
It was a sello that I got along the Way that caused such a ruckus at the Pilgrim Office. It’s a long sordid tale.
One day a couple of weeks ago I was walking at the end of a particularly long day, minding my own business, when I noticed a swarmy guy, who bore a striking resemblance to Snidely Whiplash, sitting outside what looked like a very welcoming alburgue called The Camino Provides. Sitting beside him was a very comely young Pilgrim by the name of Naomi, wearing very short Pilgrim hiking shorts and a very tight fitting Pilgrim hiking tee shirt. I immediately thought that Naomi was not wearing appropriate apparel for a young female Pilgrim, but I am trying not to be judgmental on my pilgrimage so I decided to keep my opinions about her hiking togs to myself. Well, Snidely bade me Buen Camino and asked me if I needed a place to rest my weary bones. I told Snidely that I had been praying that I would find a place of rest and rejuvenation at the end of what had been a long day. Snidely jubilantly proclaimed that his establishment, The Camino Provides, is the answer to my fervent and heartfelt prayer. I jumped for joy and followed Snidely into what I thought was his alburgue and sat down in the reception area with Snidely and Naomi. Snidely gave me an ice cold beer 🍺 and started filling out all the usual alburgue registration paperwork. He then stamped my Pilgrim credential and told me it would be 70 bucks. I was flabbergasted 😮 and told him that I have never paid more than 10 bucks for a night at an alburgue! He laughed at me and with a twinkle in his eye and a sweep of his arm in Naomi’s direction, told me that The Camino Provides was not an alburgue. Then I looked at the stamp he had irreversibly affixed to my precious Pilgrim credencial.
I am sure you can pick out the sello from The Camino Provides.
I immediately leapt to my feet and indignantly told him that I was not interested in sampling Naomi’s wares nor was I interested in spending another second in his foul establishment. He seemed puzzled by my outburst and said that my reputation had proceeded me and he knew I was the famous Colorado Cowboy On The Camino. I was flabbergasted and told him that I was not that kind of cowboy 🤠! I was a Pilgrim cowboy, not a Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove cowboy. Snidely apologized profusely but said that he could not remove his offending sello from my heretofore unsullied Pilgrim credencial. I was devastated and had a deep foreboding that this sello would cause a ruckus at the Pilgrim Office in Santiago, and sure enough it did.
When I got to the Pilgrim Office this afternoon the credencial examiner asked me if I walked from St. Jean to Santiago for religious or spiritual reasons. I proudly and loudly replied that my entire 500 mile journey was one long and deeply spiritual and religious experience. He seemed pleased by my enthusiastic response and proceeded to examine my credencial and the stamps affixed to my credencial. When the credencial examiner got to the page where Snidely had affixed the stamp from The Camino Provides he dropped my credencial as if it was as hot as the fires of Hell and screamed that I was no Pilgrim, that I was a disgrace to all Pilgrims everywhere and that I would get a Compostela over his dead body. I told him the sad tale of my inadvertent visit to The Camino Provides but he wasn’t buying a word of my story. He called for security to throw me out of the Pilgrim Office. I asked if there was an appeals process and he said that I could visit Father Juan at the adjacent rectory and plead my case.
Remember that Father Juan is the Bishop’s assistant who officiated at the noon Pilgrim mass today.
I told Father Juan about my inadvertent visit to The Camino Provides and assured him that I am a card carrying Catholic, that I never eat meat 🥩 on Fridays during Lent, I always go the parish fish fry and don’t raise a stink when they say they are serving walleye when everyone knows it is pollock, and that I am a proud recent honorary member of the Roman Legion and the Knights of Columbus. Father Juan wasn’t entirely buying my story, he had a heard about me from the nuns that I had encountered along the Way, nor was he entirely convinced of my Pilgrim bona fides. But he said that to error is human, and that I appeared to be one errant human, but to forgive is divine, and he was as close to divine as I was going to get today. He granted my appeal and ordered the Pilgrim Office to issue me my Compostela and Certificate of Distance. This is me, proud as a peacock, with my hard fought but fairly won Compostela and Certificate of Distance.
What an eventful day it has been for your humble correspondent.
I hope everyone had a great Tuesday.
Good evening from Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 