The Pilgrim's Mass: The Journey Complete. November 8, 2012

I actually concelebrated the Pilgrim's Mass in my dirty, smelly hiking boots and disheveled shirt and pants. Out in the congregation were a number of "peregrinos" or pilgrims with I walked much of the journey. There they were, seeing me for the first time doing the most important thing in my life: celebrating the Eucharist. The photos show how joyful I was being in this magnificent sanctuary with so many people coming together to pray and celebrate the camino.

As is the case with everything in life, all good things must come to an end, but only so that a new start can begin : a new direction in life, a new relationship, a new job or just a whole new outlook or attitude. New beginnings can't happen unless we are able to say "goodbye" and let go of the experience making way for the new. The gospel paradox that is Truth: we must die to find life; we must give so that we can receive; we lose the old self (the ego) so that our True Self
(God) can emerge.

Tomorrow I'm off to Finnisterre and Muxia.... the "end of the world" to let go of the old and walk a new camino that leads to Chicago and st Teresa of Avila. Yes, the journey is the destination and Santiago is just one more place on my personal map. Each place...each city...each school...each job...each parish...each neighborhood...form the contours of our inner map and have helped to give shape to who we are and who we are slowly becoming.

Chicago, not Santiago or any other city or village, is my home and "place" of transformation. The journey just keeps going in until we all breath our last breath in this life only to inhale eternity and a journey where there are no goodbyes...or blisters! Buen camino. Padre