Blog from Rachel or in Latin, Rachelem! Santiago de Compostella is amazing. We have finished the second part of our pilgrimage: part A was Fatima and such, part B was the sacrificing Camino, part C will be World Youth Day! As Father Scott said, we are going quickly from solitude to solidarity . :) Miracles and miracles keep happening for us. Every church Father says Mass in; every alberque we stay in; people are at the right place at the right time for us. (It did involve running through Spanish streets a few times....). The Camino really was beautiful. I told Ada that we would hate whoever planned it, IF we had no purpose, which luckily we did. :). And Masses both in the Cova da Ira AND on the altar in the crypt of St. James' tomb??? It is the blessing of a lifetime, this trip. Intentions for you all are in our hearts, at everywhere we go; a special prayer today was for my son-of-thunder bro James. :). We are all very happy but sometimes it takes a while after 4:30 wakeup calls for a week. :). Oh and it was a sight to behold when we first saw the Cathedral of St. James. I think our smiles permanently stretched our faces :). Our community morning Rosary and silence (for two hours:)), and night Liturgy Prep are very beautiful. Last night we had a very intense discussion about whether or not God has favorites. We concluded that it was not true that He has favorites, only that He does have very seeable patterns of Divine Election. Besides, as in the cases of the Israelites and our Lady, they were chosen especially, for US to have the ultimate benefits. So that was cool... And also, today, Dorothy figured out that us Americans have the Faith because of St. James. St. James, to the Spanish missionaries; Spanish missionaries, to the Americas. Cool, right?
It's also really cool here because I am understanding more and more Spanish in passing conversation. The people here have a very graceful little lisp for various s, z, and c sounds. Okay, I had better stop :). Love and tons of prayers to you all! Did you know that here, goodbye is...
Ciao
Fr. Scott Braathen said it was a trill to first see the cathedral of st James after walking - i pictured you all seeing it and getting new joy
ReplyDeleteWe were just having the conversation this morning about favorites because of the feast day today. We concluded much the same thing, only our version was the Mary is God's favorite because in sin we refuse God and Mary refused Him nothing. She is His favorite because she has allowed herself to be. Of course, we didn't have any religious or seminarians in on the conversation. Maybe you had that advantage. :0)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful blog. It's hard not to be jealous...
Love to all of you.
Mrs. Kimmel