It was so much fun reconnecting with Marco and walking the Camino Del Norte with him. I don’t mind walking alone but it was very nice to have someone to walk with, talk with and share the adventure.
A few random observations.
Rick Steeves advises travelers from the United States to leave their USA branded clothing at home and dress in a more European style. My observation is that the younger generation in Europe are besotted with American branded clothes. Everywhere I went I encountered young people wearing sweatpants, sweatshirts and t-shirts proudly proclaiming that they were from New York or California and that they are attending Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth or some other prestigious American institution of higher learning. So forget Rick Steeves’ advice and pack all your USA branded clothing if you want to blend in during your next trip to the Continent.
Toilet seats. A number of the commodes that I encountered in the bars and cafes during my trip did not have seats. This omission remains a mystery to me. It can’t be a matter of cost as a commode seat costs around twenty dollars. In my opinion a seat should be standard equipment on any commode. I have padded commode seats on the commodes at my house. I have heard of people who have installed padded and heated seats on the commodes at their homes. I am not complaining about the occasional seatless commode that I encountered on my trip, but maybe someone could start a GoFund Me site to help these bars and cafes purchase seats for their commodes.
I mentioned in a previous post that this is a Holy Year. When the Feast Day of Saint James falls on a Sunday that is a Holy Year. Last year, 2021 was a Holy Year. The Pope granted a COVID extension of the Holy Year through 2022. For at least 1200 years walking the Camino during a Holy Year has had great significance. According to the teachings of the Catholic Church, if, during a Holy Year, you walk 100 kilometers on a Camino and arrive in Santiago and walk through the Cathedral’s Door of Forgiveness and attend a Pilgrim Mass and visit the tomb of St. James under the main altar in the Cathedral and pray for the Pope’s intentions and go to confession, all your sins will be forgiven and your time in Purgatory for those sins will be remitted. It is called an indulgence and back in the day the Catholic Church would sell these indulgences. The Reformation was ignited in part by the disgust people felt about the Catholic Church’s practice of selling indulgences.
Over the course of my five days in Santiago I fulfilled all of the requirements for a Holy Year indulgence except for the confession. It has been 55 years since my last confession and the thought of remembering and then confessing 55 years worth of sins caused me to approach the idea of confession with dread and foreboding.
After the Pilgrim Mass on Friday I screwed up my courage and approached this confessional.
As I walked into the room where Father Rudolph was hearing confessions I realized that he was on his cell phone making dinner plans for that evening. He motioned for me to wait outside the confessional room while he finalized his dinner plans. After a few minutes Father Rudolph finished his cell phone conversation and motioned for me to come in and sit on a chair facing him. He asked me my name and introduced himself. He said he was Father Rudolph and then pulled down his mask and said: “Like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer but without the red nose.” After I chuckled at Father Rudolph’s attempted witticism we got down to business. Following Catholic doctrine my opening shot across the bow was as follows: “Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been 55 years since my last confession.” Father Rudolph then recoiled in amazement and horror and almost fell over backwards. After regaining his balance and composure he exclaimed: “I have heard thousands of confessions from fallen away Catholics but you sir are more like a fallen off the face of the earth Catholic.”
After we got the preliminaries out of the way I started to detail all the sins I have committed over the past 55 years starting at age 12. After a minute or two of this Father Rudolph looked at his watch and realized that hearing my full confession would take hours and cause him to miss his dinner reservation. In order to short circuit the process he blessed me and told me all my sins were forgiven and admonished me not to wait another 55 years until my next confession. Finally, he said I was a prodigal son of sorts and that there will be a party in Heaven tonight to celebrate the completion of my Holy Year journey and my confession and return to the fold. I was overwhelmed by this experience and it took me a little while to compose myself before I could venture outside the Cathedral.
What a wonderful ending to a truly memorable Camino. Thank you so much for being part of this journey.
Total Steps Walked – 502,000. Total Gain in Elevation – The Equivalent of Climbing 457 Flights of Stairs. Total Kilometers Walked – 382 = 237 miles.
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 
The story of your confession experience had me laughing out loud. Thanks for a wonderful start to the week, although I do wish I was in France!
LikeLike
Confession was a traumatic experience for me when I was going to St. Joseph’s grade school. That is probably why I waited 55 years to this most recent confession.
LikeLike