THE TWENTIETH DAY

“As they were walking along the road.”
____ Luke 9:57

Depart Órbigo
Climb dry, rugged land, scarred by gullies and scrub

On the Way: Hospital de Órbigo to the Cross of Turibius
We had planned an easy day out of Hospital, intending to go to Astorga only 17 kilometers away. We left early, westwards on the Camino, on another painful road full of rock, until we reached a dirt road more comfortable for our feet. This road joined with a paved road which appeared to be the old abandoned León/Astorga highway and it took us to the cross of Turibius.

This cross is named after the 5th century bishop-saint of Astorga and enemy of the Priscillianists, Saint Turibius. St. Turibius was bishop, a great bishop, a bishop uncommonly rare, a bishop inerrant and true, a bishop holy. Here it was that Turibius, so our guides say, was chased out of the town of Astorga by the Priscillianists, and following the injunction of the Gospel, shook the dust from his feet. Eventually he returned to claim his see, for he is buried in the Cathedral. The followers of Priscillian were prevalent in the regions of Galicia in particular during the fourth through the seventh centuries. Indeed, Astorga was a see occupied by a Priscillianist bishop, a certain Dictinus, who later abjured his Priscillianist heresies. St. Turibius championed the Faith, and worked sedulously to correct the theological, moral, and liturgical errors of this persistent pseudo-Manichean sect. He asked the great Pope St. Leo for help in addressing some doctrinal issues. Peter spoke through Leo by means of epistles, which, as might be expected, sided with the bishop of Astorga on the side of truth and in opposition of error.

Between Sant Ibáñez and Estebañez

D
Crucero Santo Toribio

I I I

I did not know it at the time as I surveyed the town of Astorga from the heights by the Cross of Santo Toribio, but the Spirit of God hovered in Astorga that day. He waited by the old Episcopal Palace, by the Cathedral, to speak through the mouth of a prophet. This was no ordinary prophet, for the prophet was a Maragato and he prophesized by means of a guitar.




Through San Justo de la Vega

k
San Justo

Over the río Tuerto


Into Astorga
(878 m.)
On the Way: Into Astorga
From the cross of St. Turibius we descended into the town of San Justo de la Vega. At San Justo de la Vega we stopped for a rest, and in the café we encountered José. As he departed, he said, “Agur Bai.” I responded “Agur Bai.” It was the only words of Basque I learned on pilgrimage.
Once we left the café we crossed the río Tuerto and not much later the río Arganoso over a three-arched Roman bridge. We crossed over some railroad tracks, and entered into Astorga, Pliny’s urbs magnifica, for it was a city of gold mines to the Romans. The city is centered on the east-west ridge of the mountains, and was an important station on the Roman road between Bordeaux in Gaul and Braga in Hispania. We entered the city from the southeast, on the travesia de Minerva, which led us to the calle del Perpetuo Socorro into the plaza de Santa María and the location of where at one time was the entry into Astorga, the puerta del Sol, which no longer exists.
We walked by the ancient walls of Roman foundation and medieval accretion. Despite their old age, the walls are sound and hale, especially around the region of the Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace. Of mottled rock, the walls stood high. They were, at least in this area, without battlement, but were memorable for their ponderous, semi-cylindrical buttresses.
I I I





Osturga


N
Catedral de Santa María

The Cathedral of St. Mary was a wonder of yellow and ochre rock; a perfect, balanced blend of Renaissance towers, Gothic nave, and Baroque—if not borderlink Plateresque—façade. Its yellow and ochre stone blended in the light of the sun, which gave the building a stolid, but welcoming warmth. Atop was an effigy of Pero (or Pedro) Mato, the Maragato hero of Clavijo. The church is known for the baroque frontispiece on the west front, which is framed in so-called columnas ajarronadas, or solomonic columns. The main retable on the interior, by Gaspar Becerra, is a guilded splendor of a mannerism, scenes of the lives of Christ and of Mary, under arched and standard pediments.
The church here is in replacement of the Romanesque structure that preceded it. It is a pity that the Romanesque cathedral church of St. Turibius was not preserved. But we may find another temple, built not by human hands, which once housed the soul of the bishop. I speak of the temple of his body. The relics of St. Turibius are here, and I was beckoned by something within me to pause before his sepulchre, in the heart of his ancient see, and pour out my soul to the bishop. I asked that he shepherd it to the Lord as he shepherded the souls of the Christian faithful in his diocese. I don’t suppose my prayers in English are an impediment to him now although without doubt they would have been an impediment to him then. I am the product of my society, and was not taught good Latin when young, and so I cannot speak to good Turibius with much facility in Latin extempore.
I I I

On the Way: The Maragato, Guitar-Playing Prophet
The Bishop’s Palace next to the Cathedral is of Gaudí. Though of relatively modern conception, the palace is a work of genius, and, like all Gaudí’s works a fantastic, creative and eclectic symphony of old and new. It is a warped Gothic. There, at the steps, I had my encounter with a prophet. I do not know his name, but he prophesizes by means of his guitar.
As I walked up the steps into the palace, which is now a pilgrim’s museum, I threw a 100 peseta coin into his coat, which he used as a receptacle for coins. He strummed his guitar and sang a common song about the Camino for me. Then something changed in his mannerisms. He took the guitar placed it on his back, and brought it back in front of him. He saw in me with the eyes of his soul, and he told me of a secret burden that I carried in my pack and a like one that I carried in my heart. He sang:
“En el segundo año de tu peregrinaje
Iras a la Cruz de Ferro;
Allí tiraras tus piedras
Y tu mochila se pondra ligera.”

The guitarist sang this refrain twice. I was confused by his statement that it was the second year of my pilgrimage. What did this mean?

I pondered this unusual prodigy as I walked through the Museo del Peregrino housed in Gaudí’s palace. What had this guitar-playing Maragato meant by these words? It suddenly dawned on me. I was working on the second year of my father’s death, and I carried with me two stones, one with my father’s initials, and one with my mother’s. I had carried them with me since St. Jean Pied-de-Port, and intended on the morrow to throw them upon the heap of stones of the Cruz de Ferro, a monument atop the mountains that we had to cross on our way into Galicia. What gratia gratis data had the All-Knowing poured into this man’s brain that he should know this? I had not told a soul of the burden in my pack nor of the burden of my soul, and only God could have let the Maragato in on my secret.
When I walked out of the museum, and looked at the steps, the prophet had gone. I would have thought him an angel, and not a prophet, but he showed up in a photograph I took of him and he did not have wings.
I I I

On the Way: The Mystery Most Pedestrian
Every pilgrimage has a mystery. Some have more than one. One of the mysteries of my pilgrimage was to be found on the second floor of the Bishop’s Palace. On the second floor of the Bishop’s Palace, the bishop had his refectory built. It was a lovely dining hall, with yellow and green stained glass windows. The windows contained a mystery, and the mystery was found in the words etched on the windows. These were not ordinary words, for though they appeared similar to the classic Catholic grace, “Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty,” in Latin, they did not read thus. Instead, I read:
What could this mean? What version of grace did the Bishop Juan Bautista Grau Vallespinós place on the windows of his refrectory? What latent heresy, gnostic mystery, magic spell, or esoteric kabbala was contained in these mysterious words? This was not Latin. Of what mysterious language were these words transliterations? What magic spell would be wrought if this formula were pronounced when the moon was full? Was the Bishop of Astorga a wicked heretic? A gnostic? A magician? A crypto-Jew? Was this perhaps proof that both the architect Gaudí and the bishop were masons or secret followers of Priscillian?
As I struggled with this conundrum, I realized I had been duped by the slip up of a careless workman. For some workman had reversed the hinges on the doors of the refectory and thereby tampered with the message. Had these been placed aright, the mystery would be all out of it:

I I I




Leave Astorga through the Fonce-badón route


By Valde-viejos

k
San Verisimo

To Murias de Rechivaldo


Castrillo de Polva-zares

Through the moors into Santa Catalina de Somoza



On the Way: Astorga to Santa Catalina
We left Astorga and fully entered into the land of the Maragatos, a people whose ancestry is the source of controversy among scholars, rivaled in controversy only by the still more inscrutable origins of the Basques. Between Astorga and Molinaseca, several days ahead, is their land, which is called the Maragatería. The land of the Maragatos in the region of the Camino is arid, depopulated, and is characterized by many a ruined and abandoned village. This is the land once of semi-nomadic muleteers, who in this arid and hostile land spent little capital and little labor in the art of building. They say that the name Maragatos is derived from the Latin mercator, or merchant. I suppose that these folks would have remained merchants but for the railroad, which overnight made the mule an obsolete engine of commerce. The railway, which helped the rich man in Madrid, hurt the poor man in the land of the Maragatos, and so many of these towns are now abandoned, or nearly so. The land and the towns were to be this way until we reached the fertile Bierzo valley as we neared Galicia.
I was reminded of Ezra Pound and his cryptic Cantos where he refers to this region:
No symptoms of commerce or even of internal traffic
Between Galice and Leon 1780.
All of color made of black sheep’s wool undyed
The river Valcaire between two rows of mountains
Not a decent house since Corunna.[i]

This, I understand, was before the Railroads, as Pound based this Canto upon the diary of John Adams, when the latter visited this land in the late 1700s. Ezra Pound in his Cantos also relates that the Maragato women are as fine as squaws but a great deal more nasty.[ii] But I found that it was not the Maragato women, but the bartenders that were so. For there was not a bar or café that I entered in the land of the Maragatos that did not have some obscene picture, cartoon, or figure in it.

I I I

We left Astorga from the north of the city, traveling by the church of St. Peter, on the road to the town of Santa Colomba de Somoza. Our path proved to be a climbing one as we neared the mountains of León. We passed the small hermitage of Ecce homo by the semi-abandoned town of Valdeviejas, once named Villa Sancti Verissimi, after its patron, St. Verisimus. The town of Valdeviejas sat on the banks of the arroyo Jerga. From Valdeviejas we parted leftwards from the river and into Murias de Rechivaldo. At Murias the Camino left the road for a while, although it met the road once again two or three kilometers ahead, where it forked into two. At the split, we followed the right fork, and it led us up a slight ascent into Santa Catalina where we stopped for the evening.
Ahead and to our left was monte Teleno, and it had two patches of what we thought was snow. That it was snow was confirmed by the bartender at the only Bar open in town. He fed us a simple meal of a bocadillo of lomo and queso and some red wine. He had straight dark hair, was small in stature, and wore a dirty blue shirt and soiled pants. He had a mustache, and a two-day growth on the rest of his face. He had a bad eye, which he could not use. He was gruff at first, but worked very hard to serve us. When we asked him if the patches up ahead were snow, he answered, “yes,” and warmed up considerably. Before the evening finished, he patted me on the back and wished me well.

I I I

The little village of Santa Catalina has a rustic church, and the rustic church has a treasure, not of the earth but of the spirit. For in the church of St. Mary at St. Catherine’s there is preserved for the benefit of all good men and all good women who have the disposition and the need for it, the relics of San Blas, known to us as St. Blaise. I am not sure if anyone has traced how the town acquired a relic of the Armenian bishop-martyr. To this saint many years ago in a place many leagues away, was brought a boy who had a fishbone lodged in his throat, and the saint healed the boy, gave great joy to the mother, and assured his entry into the halls of the popular hagiographical cultus.





































T
Last quarter moon


Per interces-sionem Sancti Blasii liberet te Deus a malo gutturis et a quovis alio malo
k

[i] Ezra Pound, Cantos, Canto LXV.
[ii] Id.

THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY

“You see us walking we are the foot-sloggers . . . “

____ Charles Peguy[i]




Leave Santa Catalina





On the Way: Santa Catalina to the Cruz de Ferro
The walk to the town of Rabanal del Camino via the town of El Ganso was kind and peaceful to us. The terrain had markedly changed, and with it the manner of building. For the people are not fools, at least not when it comes to their dwellings, and they generally work with the materials around them. The air was cool, refreshing; the ground about us green with wild grass, brush, broom, and other shrubs. Oaks and pine abounded as we walk through forest land. Birds sang their cheery and random melodies.
We continued westwards and met with the town of El Ganso. There were some homes here, called teitadas, with simple, pitched roofs of straw thatching instead of clay tile. The walls were made of piled stones. They appeared abandoned, and were in a terrible state of repair. We were slowly leaving the land of the Maragatos and heading to the land of the Bierzo, and things were getting greener.


El Ganso
Over the Puente de Pañoto into Rabanal del Camino
(1106 m.)
El Ganso had a church dedicated to Santiago, with a statute of the saint as pilgrim, and a chapel of Christ of the Pilgrims. From here we traveled through a woods of pine, spotted with groves of robles (oak) and encinas (live oak), over the arroyo Rabanal Viejo through the kind service of a bridge called the puente del Pañote. The peak of the monte Teleno hovered proudly southwest of the Camino, and off we continued to the hermitage dedicated to Santo Cristo de la Vera Cruz, Holy Christ of the True Cross. From the hermitage we walked into Rabanal del Camino, the city called the captive, Picaud tells us as an aside and without explanation. At Rabanal del Camino begin the spurs of the Montes de León, and the Camino will begin its ascent to the puerto de Foncebadón, the divide between la Maragatería and el Bierzo. We had clearly left the land of the meseta, the time of passion and suffering, and entered into the green lands of the Bierzo valley, land of resurrection and ascension. The land instills in the pilgrim’s heart a sense of his imminent triumph.
I I I




Rapha-nellus, qui captivus cognomi-natus est


k
Santa María

As we entered Rabanal del Camino, we passed on the right of the calle Real (which is the name of the street into the town) the remains of a hospital, dedicated they say to St. Gregory. We looked for, but never found, the casa de las Cuatro Esquinas, the house of the four corners which housed the great Phillip II when he made pilgrimage to Compostela. I’m sure other buildings housed the great Phillip II on his way to Compostela, and I’m not sure why this house, of all the others, has been singled out of the many others as honorable mention. Besides, almost all houses have four corners, so the name strikes me as insufficiently descriptive: a tautology, perhaps even a lampoonery.
We next came upon the church at Rabanal del Camino. The church in Rabanal had no corners—at least in its twelfth-century apse, which is round. It was built in the twelfth century by the knights Templars, and dedicated to St. Mary.
It was still early. We waited at the pilgrim’s refuge (which is run by the English Confraternity of St. James) for the cafe to open. When the first café opened we had breakfast and worried about the day, for the clouds in the sky were swollen, heavy, and gray; and the way ahead showed clear signs of imminent rain.
I I I





Depart Rabanal del Camino

Through aban-doned Fonce-badón


Through the Puerto de Irago
(1504 m.)

D
The Cruz de Ferro
(1490 m.)

On the Way: Rabanal to Ponferrada
From Rabanal we traveled up a narrow dirt path through the brush of the mountains. The more we climbed, the more beauty the Camino yielded our eyes. The air was cool, and, as expected, rain began to fall. We donned our ponchos, and I kept walking in my sandals. My feet quickly turned cold and numb—which neutralized to some degree the pain. We traveled on the east side of the monte Irago and came upon the town of Foncebadón. It is described in the guides as abandoned, but it was not abandoned, as we saw much sign of permanent life. Outside the town, by some ruins, some young French pilgrims were packing up their tents. We were later to meet these pilgrims and befriend them in Santiago.
We continued past Foncebadón through the puerto Irago, the port or pass of Irago, which is 1504 meters in altitude. The path flirted with the winding carretera as it climbed up by outcrops of slate, woods of oak and pine, and undergrowth of broom and brush. The brush scratched my legs as I walked by, and dumped cold water on my feet. The sky was overcast, foggy, and the weather alternated between fine drizzle and outright rain. The wind was likewise fickle, and changed from calm to tempestuous. The temperature was in the low 50s.
After a bitter and cold walk, we caught sight of the hermitage of Santiago and the famed Cruz de Ferro, the simple monument of the iron cross atop a wooden mast of oak decorated with ribbons and other pilgrim votives. It traditionally marks the division between the Maragatería and the Bierzo regions.




Portus montis Yraci








The Cruz de Ferro was surrounded by a pile of stones thrown here by pilgrims perennial. Perhaps, as they say, the tradition is of pagan origin—a cult devoted to Mercury. I don’t know. What rocks have to do with Mercury I do not know either. What I do know is that there was no paganism, latent or patent, in my mind when I participated in the custom. My sentiments here were by paganism unsullied, and my intendment wholly Christian and Catholic.
Two stones here are not from Spain, but from the New World. I threw two stones here ex voto, in remembrance of each of my parents now dead and each bearing one of my parents’ initials and my prayers for them: D.K.G.-R.I.P. and M.D.G.-R.I.P. Though the heavy rocks fell back to earth as expected (that is a law of Nature), the prayers written on them which are in my mind rise to Heaven (that is a law of Grace). You may search for these stones among the thousands there, and if you are lucky you shall find one of them and if you are luckier still you shall find them both. But under the penalty of my personal anathema and all principles of human decency leave them there. And whether you search for them or whether you don’t, I bid you say a prayer for the souls of my parents. Requiescant in pacem. But do not pray to Mercury, who is unreal and capable neither of judgment nor of mercy, but to the God of Jacob who Is.









After praying for the souls of my parents, I paused to thank God for the beauty of the Bierzo, the privilege to be alive and on pilgrimage here, and the chance to pray for the repose of my parents’ souls. We shielded ourselves from the wind by crouching by the wall of the tiny hermitage, and ate cookies, cherries, almonds and hazelnuts to fortify our tired, wet and cold bodies. We also talked to some Danish pilgrims who shared our plight. But it was a weak formula against the cold and the wet, for the rain and cold bothered us and hunger gnawed on us until we walked under a roof and ate a hot meal at El Acebo, some hours ahead.
I I I

D.K.G. et M.D.G.

Pie Iesu, Domine, Dona eis requiem

Deus Iacob



On the Way: Cruz de Ferro to Manjarín
and the Templar Knight Errant

From the Cruz de Ferro we descended to the village of Manjarín, abandoned and in ruins now, although it boasted a sizeable pilgrim hospital in the past. It did, however, have a somewhat nonconformist refugio for the pilgrim disposed to spend the night here. We stopped inside to get out of the rain, for the refugio had a fire, but felt unsettled in the place. The hospitaller, a man named Tomás, thinks himself a Templar Knight. He was dressed in fatigues and boots, and wore a dirty white tunic emblazoned with the red Templar cross. The Beau Seant waved on a flag pole in the entrance.
This man is a Knight Templar errant, for the Knights Templar were supressed by the Pope. The Pope gave them life through his legate Matthew of Albano at the Council of Troye in 1129. The Pope killed them when Clement V suppressed the order in 1312 by the bull Vox in excelso. And whether it right or wrong the Pope gave and the Pope took away. And it will take another act of the Pope to make the Templars live. For a Templar has no life outside of the Church. Besides, I read that this man left a wife and two teenage daughters in the lurch, to go about his errant way, which makes him an infidel in my book, a cad and a foolish dreamer, and certainly not a Poor Soldier of Christ. As we walked in and as we walked out the refugio, the Knight Templar Errant did not greet us, for he appeared busy flirting with a gaggle of foolish and gullible Spanish women who were on vacation.
From the height of Manjarín we began our descent into the verdant Bierzo valley, which was still before us a distance, and into the village of El Acebo. The Bierzo was considered to be the narthex to Galicia, the sanctuary of St. James. It was a beautiful and fertile land, filled with every shade and hue of green. On the left slightly ahead of the Camino we observed Monte de Compludo where the monastery of Compludo is located, one of a string of monasteries in the Bierzo region founded by San Fructuoso in the 7th century. We walked through and between outcrops of slate, dark gray and dull auburn in color.

Into aban-doned Manjarín



Descent
To El Acebo
(1145 m.)
We entered the town of El Acebo, passing by the río Poijol and the fuente de la Trucha. This hamlet’s homes are of gray stone and have painted wooden balconies that extend past the boundaries of the house over the streets. Their roofs are shingled with black, silver, and brown slate.
At a restaurant in El Acebo I had sopa del Bierzo, a rich vegetable soup, and some veal with some red wine. The red wine was a grevious mistake, a great folly, for it stole any resolve to face the storm, and even the strong coffee could not re-inspire in me any pilgrim fortitude. So around two o’clock, the wine having stolen all our determination, we quit for the day, and settled in the city by the restaurant that had so bountifully fed us for a fair price, yet robbed us of our hardihood.
That night I slept horribly. I had to resort to cigarette butts because of the snorers. My body was cold and never felt warmth. The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable. My feet hurt in a manner I cannot describe. Their constant throbbing kept me awake. I may have been able to lull myself to sleep had I been able to moan. But being that I was in a common bedroom, I could not moan as an anodyne to pain. Instead I had to suffer in a stoic, wakeful silence.

k

[i] quoted by Francis Bourdeau, “Pilgrimage, Eucharist, Reconciliation”, Lumen Vitae 39 (1984), 403, quoted in Robinson, Anthology, p. 42. “You see us walking we are the foot-sloggers . . . “

____ Charles Peguy[i]




Leave Santa Catalina





On the Way: Santa Catalina to the Cruz de Ferro
The walk to the town of Rabanal del Camino via the town of El Ganso was kind and peaceful to us. The terrain had markedly changed, and with it the manner of building. For the people are not fools, at least not when it comes to their dwellings, and they generally work with the materials around them. The air was cool, refreshing; the ground about us green with wild grass, brush, broom, and other shrubs. Oaks and pine abounded as we walk through forest land. Birds sang their cheery and random melodies.
We continued westwards and met with the town of El Ganso. There were some homes here, called teitadas, with simple, pitched roofs of straw thatching instead of clay tile. The walls were made of piled stones. They appeared abandoned, and were in a terrible state of repair. We were slowly leaving the land of the Maragatos and heading to the land of the Bierzo, and things were getting greener.


El Ganso
Over the Puente de Pañoto into Rabanal del Camino
(1106 m.)
El Ganso had a church dedicated to Santiago, with a statute of the saint as pilgrim, and a chapel of Christ of the Pilgrims. From here we traveled through a woods of pine, spotted with groves of robles (oak) and encinas (live oak), over the arroyo Rabanal Viejo through the kind service of a bridge called the puente del Pañote. The peak of the monte Teleno hovered proudly southwest of the Camino, and off we continued to the hermitage dedicated to Santo Cristo de la Vera Cruz, Holy Christ of the True Cross. From the hermitage we walked into Rabanal del Camino, the city called the captive, Picaud tells us as an aside and without explanation. At Rabanal del Camino begin the spurs of the Montes de León, and the Camino will begin its ascent to the puerto de Foncebadón, the divide between la Maragatería and el Bierzo. We had clearly left the land of the meseta, the time of passion and suffering, and entered into the green lands of the Bierzo valley, land of resurrection and ascension. The land instills in the pilgrim’s heart a sense of his imminent triumph.
I I I




Rapha-nellus, qui captivus cognomi-natus est


k
Santa María

As we entered Rabanal del Camino, we passed on the right of the calle Real (which is the name of the street into the town) the remains of a hospital, dedicated they say to St. Gregory. We looked for, but never found, the casa de las Cuatro Esquinas, the house of the four corners which housed the great Phillip II when he made pilgrimage to Compostela. I’m sure other buildings housed the great Phillip II on his way to Compostela, and I’m not sure why this house, of all the others, has been singled out of the many others as honorable mention. Besides, almost all houses have four corners, so the name strikes me as insufficiently descriptive: a tautology, perhaps even a lampoonery.
We next came upon the church at Rabanal del Camino. The church in Rabanal had no corners—at least in its twelfth-century apse, which is round. It was built in the twelfth century by the knights Templars, and dedicated to St. Mary.
It was still early. We waited at the pilgrim’s refuge (which is run by the English Confraternity of St. James) for the cafe to open. When the first café opened we had breakfast and worried about the day, for the clouds in the sky were swollen, heavy, and gray; and the way ahead showed clear signs of imminent rain.
I I I





Depart Rabanal del Camino

Through aban-doned Fonce-badón


Through the Puerto de Irago
(1504 m.)

D
The Cruz de Ferro
(1490 m.)

On the Way: Rabanal to Ponferrada
From Rabanal we traveled up a narrow dirt path through the brush of the mountains. The more we climbed, the more beauty the Camino yielded our eyes. The air was cool, and, as expected, rain began to fall. We donned our ponchos, and I kept walking in my sandals. My feet quickly turned cold and numb—which neutralized to some degree the pain. We traveled on the east side of the monte Irago and came upon the town of Foncebadón. It is described in the guides as abandoned, but it was not abandoned, as we saw much sign of permanent life. Outside the town, by some ruins, some young French pilgrims were packing up their tents. We were later to meet these pilgrims and befriend them in Santiago.
We continued past Foncebadón through the puerto Irago, the port or pass of Irago, which is 1504 meters in altitude. The path flirted with the winding carretera as it climbed up by outcrops of slate, woods of oak and pine, and undergrowth of broom and brush. The brush scratched my legs as I walked by, and dumped cold water on my feet. The sky was overcast, foggy, and the weather alternated between fine drizzle and outright rain. The wind was likewise fickle, and changed from calm to tempestuous. The temperature was in the low 50s.
After a bitter and cold walk, we caught sight of the hermitage of Santiago and the famed Cruz de Ferro, the simple monument of the iron cross atop a wooden mast of oak decorated with ribbons and other pilgrim votives. It traditionally marks the division between the Maragatería and the Bierzo regions.




Portus montis Yraci








The Cruz de Ferro was surrounded by a pile of stones thrown here by pilgrims perennial. Perhaps, as they say, the tradition is of pagan origin—a cult devoted to Mercury. I don’t know. What rocks have to do with Mercury I do not know either. What I do know is that there was no paganism, latent or patent, in my mind when I participated in the custom. My sentiments here were by paganism unsullied, and my intendment wholly Christian and Catholic.
Two stones here are not from Spain, but from the New World. I threw two stones here ex voto, in remembrance of each of my parents now dead and each bearing one of my parents’ initials and my prayers for them: D.K.G.-R.I.P. and M.D.G.-R.I.P. Though the heavy rocks fell back to earth as expected (that is a law of Nature), the prayers written on them which are in my mind rise to Heaven (that is a law of Grace). You may search for these stones among the thousands there, and if you are lucky you shall find one of them and if you are luckier still you shall find them both. But under the penalty of my personal anathema and all principles of human decency leave them there. And whether you search for them or whether you don’t, I bid you say a prayer for the souls of my parents. Requiescant in pacem. But do not pray to Mercury, who is unreal and capable neither of judgment nor of mercy, but to the God of Jacob who Is.









After praying for the souls of my parents, I paused to thank God for the beauty of the Bierzo, the privilege to be alive and on pilgrimage here, and the chance to pray for the repose of my parents’ souls. We shielded ourselves from the wind by crouching by the wall of the tiny hermitage, and ate cookies, cherries, almonds and hazelnuts to fortify our tired, wet and cold bodies. We also talked to some Danish pilgrims who shared our plight. But it was a weak formula against the cold and the wet, for the rain and cold bothered us and hunger gnawed on us until we walked under a roof and ate a hot meal at El Acebo, some hours ahead.
I I I

D.K.G. et M.D.G.

Pie Iesu, Domine, Dona eis requiem

Deus Iacob



On the Way: Cruz de Ferro to Manjarín
and the Templar Knight Errant

From the Cruz de Ferro we descended to the village of Manjarín, abandoned and in ruins now, although it boasted a sizeable pilgrim hospital in the past. It did, however, have a somewhat nonconformist refugio for the pilgrim disposed to spend the night here. We stopped inside to get out of the rain, for the refugio had a fire, but felt unsettled in the place. The hospitaller, a man named Tomás, thinks himself a Templar Knight. He was dressed in fatigues and boots, and wore a dirty white tunic emblazoned with the red Templar cross. The Beau Seant waved on a flag pole in the entrance.
This man is a Knight Templar errant, for the Knights Templar were supressed by the Pope. The Pope gave them life through his legate Matthew of Albano at the Council of Troye in 1129. The Pope killed them when Clement V suppressed the order in 1312 by the bull Vox in excelso. And whether it right or wrong the Pope gave and the Pope took away. And it will take another act of the Pope to make the Templars live. For a Templar has no life outside of the Church. Besides, I read that this man left a wife and two teenage daughters in the lurch, to go about his errant way, which makes him an infidel in my book, a cad and a foolish dreamer, and certainly not a Poor Soldier of Christ. As we walked in and as we walked out the refugio, the Knight Templar Errant did not greet us, for he appeared busy flirting with a gaggle of foolish and gullible Spanish women who were on vacation.
From the height of Manjarín we began our descent into the verdant Bierzo valley, which was still before us a distance, and into the village of El Acebo. The Bierzo was considered to be the narthex to Galicia, the sanctuary of St. James. It was a beautiful and fertile land, filled with every shade and hue of green. On the left slightly ahead of the Camino we observed Monte de Compludo where the monastery of Compludo is located, one of a string of monasteries in the Bierzo region founded by San Fructuoso in the 7th century. We walked through and between outcrops of slate, dark gray and dull auburn in color.

Into aban-doned Manjarín



Descent
To El Acebo
(1145 m.)
We entered the town of El Acebo, passing by the río Poijol and the fuente de la Trucha. This hamlet’s homes are of gray stone and have painted wooden balconies that extend past the boundaries of the house over the streets. Their roofs are shingled with black, silver, and brown slate.
At a restaurant in El Acebo I had sopa del Bierzo, a rich vegetable soup, and some veal with some red wine. The red wine was a grevious mistake, a great folly, for it stole any resolve to face the storm, and even the strong coffee could not re-inspire in me any pilgrim fortitude. So around two o’clock, the wine having stolen all our determination, we quit for the day, and settled in the city by the restaurant that had so bountifully fed us for a fair price, yet robbed us of our hardihood.
That night I slept horribly. I had to resort to cigarette butts because of the snorers. My body was cold and never felt warmth. The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable. My feet hurt in a manner I cannot describe. Their constant throbbing kept me awake. I may have been able to lull myself to sleep had I been able to moan. But being that I was in a common bedroom, I could not moan as an anodyne to pain. Instead I had to suffer in a stoic, wakeful silence.

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[i] quoted by Francis Bourdeau, “Pilgrimage, Eucharist, Reconciliation”, Lumen Vitae 39 (1984), 403, quoted in Robinson, Anthology, p. 42.

THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY

“If you wish to arrive, never stop on the Way,
One must from light to light forever forward strain.”

____ Angelus Silesius, The Cherubic Wanderer[i]




Through Riego de Ambrós
(920 m.)

Forests of Sweet Chestnut into

El Acebo rises out of the green brushland of the río Meruelo. That river is fed by the río Grande and the río Pequeño, and a series of arroyos that wrinkle the landscape were one to look at it from some great height: the arroyos Duque, Alantio, Prestadura, Santa Catalina. The land, while rich and green, is not for large-scale farming because it is so broken up by hills and streams. It was bitterly cold when we departed the town in the morning. Rainfall during the night had left all things damp; the rain, thankfully, had ceased by morning.
We traveled on the carretera and then off on foot trails, downhill almost all the way into the town of Riego de Ambrós. As we walked through the town, dogs—confined by fences on the left and on the right of the path—barked violently at us. The homes here looked solid, well-tended, with black slate roofs. Past the town the path veered right into an alley and away from the road. It led us down a hill and onto a dirt path, which, because of the night rain, had turned muddy. In the dark I was unable to detect puddles, and stepped in some cold mud. Walking these trails, we passed through forests of chestnut, contorted and disfigured by the elements. The trees appeared as if they were aged warriors suffering from the wounds of their valiant and reckless youth.

From the town of Riego de Ambrós we descended to the narrow valley of the arroyo Prado Mangas, and from there into the basin of the río de la Pretadura. Finally, we made it to the village of Molinaseca, which sat happily at the edge of the río Meruelo. The buildings of the town of Molinaseca were of gray stone, and the dwellings, which were emblazoned with coats-of-arms, were covered with roofs tiled with black slate. Before we reached the town proper, we passed on our right an old hermitage on the way to ruin if not already there—the distinction is sometimes fine—the santuario de las Angustias. We crossed the Muruelo River by way of a medieval bridge, the puente de Molinaseca, and were deposited by it at a street called the calle Real. There was a church there dedicated to St. Nicolas. Further on we passed a hermitage dedicated to San Roque. The churches have steeples with metal roofs. The town looked more French than Spanish. The dawn had come as we walked into Molinaseca, and we knew cafés would be open at this hour.
Molinaseca
(595 m.)
The town of Molinaseca has many cafés, but most were closed as it was Sunday. We found one that faced the plaza. In the plaza was a cross on a column, a cruceiro. The café was open, and we headed for its promised warmth, which beckoned us though the light of its open doors. A couple of cheery Spanish women took good care of us. We broke the morning fast.

Sicca-molina
Across the stream of Valde-garcía into Campo

Over the río Boeza via the Puente Mascarón


After breakfast, we left Molinaseca and traveled onwards, following the lead of the Meruelo River for a couple of kilometers, after which we bore southwards toward Campo. Vineyards abounded.
We came upon a fork in the Camino: either way took you into Ponferrada according to our guides. We decided—on a whim and not much more—to bear left crossing the arroyo Valdegareta into the town of Campo. We passed by the old hermitage of Santo Cristo, on our left, and then approached the río Boeza. The road thus led into San Esteban de Valdueza, a suburb of Ponferrada, and to the puente Mascarón, which was our means across the Boeza River and our means of entry into Ponferrada. The sun was out by now and it was cloudless. The air still remained crisply cold. The pilgrim shivers in the shade. But the day was buoyant and the route cheery, for it abounded with cherry trees whose boughs weighed heavy with the bright red drupes. Unfortunately, all the branches that were accessible to us without trespass had been picked clean by earlier passing pilgrims.
I I I




Into Pon-ferrada

O
Castillo del Temple

On the Way: Ponferrada
Ponferrada sits in the junction of the Boeza and Sil rivers, but the pilgrim enters it from the east before the rivers join further south. Once past the puente Mascarón we went left on the calle Bajada de San Andrés, until we reached the calle del Hospital. We took a right on this street, and it led us to the church of St. Andrew and the Templar Castle, the wonder of Ponferrada.




Pons Ferratus
The castle of the Templars originates from a grant of Ferdinand II of León, who gave the town to the Templars in 1185. As a result of the order’s controversial suppression, the knights were expelled from the town in 1312. The Templar castle remained, however, and has served Spain in different ways: as a castle proper, a palace, a monastery, and now as a tourist attraction. In 1811 the French vandalized this place, and yet it still reeks of the medieval and the knight. It has all those things we expect from a good, solid castle: turrets and tower, machicolations, and pointed merlons and embrasures which made up its crenellations. Without, the castle is immense in size; it is in quite good shape. Within the castle is empty of the stuff that gave it life. Gone is the faith and love of Christ of the warrior-monks, motive of both the Templar’s charity and sword. There were no Templar banners flying: the Beau Seant of black and white was nowhere raised. Oh Templar, fair and favorable to the friend of Christ, but black and terrible to Christ’s foe, where have you gone?
I I I

As we walked into the town of Ponferrada the bells of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Encina began to peal. It was eleven o’clock, and Mass was beginning. We hurried there to meet our Sunday obligation. As I hurried to Mass, I walked by some graffiti which read, “Religión = Propaganda.” No, I thought, religion does not mean that. Religion comes from religere, which means to bind up again. It is how we tie ourselves to Reality, to the Truth, to the I Am Who Am. Tying ourselves to Truth is the opposite of propaganda. The fool who had so defaced the walls of his town, was a fool thrice over: in civics, etymology, and theology. Had I had time and the disposition (and a can of spray paint) I would have written underneath: Este graffiti es Propaganda.
I I I


N
Basilica de la Encina





At the basilica of Nuestra Señora de la Encina I prayed before Our Lady of the Holm Oak, patroness of the Bierzo. She—whose statue was found it is said hidden within the heart of a holm oak tree or encina—is now here in a place of pride above the main altar. Perhaps a Visgothic priest hid her in an oak as he sought escape from an impending moorish razzia, or raid. Perhaps it is a pious tale, a fabricated legend. In any event, whether the story that she was found in an oak tree is true or not, it is true that she has blessed these good people with fair and fecund country. And since I intended to partake in the fruits of the Bierzo valley, I owed God and her thanks for these fruits of earth. Dignum et justum est. It is a wicked and loathsome thing to be an ingrate, and so I thanked God, His Son, and Mary of the Live Oak, for the fruits of the earth in this most wondrous valley of the Bierzo.
After Mass we were hungry, everything near the Basilica appeared closed. So we passed by the Templar castle again and crossed the River Sil to find a café at which to eat. There we had a tortilla and received directions about how to depart town.
I I I



On the Way: Magic and Ponferrada
There at the café, within sight of the great Templar castle, I recalled the strange and heterodox tales of Paulo Coehlo and the bizarre initiation ceremonies he recounts in his book on the Camino. I also remembered the weird recountings of Shirley MacClaine’s Camino during her stay in Ponferrada. My heart went out to my fellow pilgrims Shirley and Paulo as I lounged in Ponferrada. I wondered how it was they could be so tone deaf to the orthodox Catholic and Christian hymnody that is captured and petrified in the portals and tympana of each Romanesque church, told in each legend, and scribbled into the Codex Calixtinus. It is the idée fixe of the Way. The genie of the Gospel is thus captured on the stones and parchment on the Way. As I thought of these things, I was captured by a muse (not a very good one, but a muse nevertheless; and one should never spurn a muse) and so I penned these lines.
Oh Paulo, Oh Shirley, pilgrims to Santiago,
On the Camino, but took a wrong turn.
For the spirit you heard goes by the name of Mago,
What you embraced, you were meant to spurn.

Priscillian’s blind minions you followed as guide,
Damned spirits chanting Hermogenist spell,
Sirens androgynous, priapic, venereal. They lied!
Metempsychic cagos from the privies of Hell.

Oh Paulo, Oh Shirley, pilgrims to Santiago,
It’s never too late to take the way home.
But you must shun the magic, about face, and go
West to St. James and the dogma of Rome.

I I I





Depart Pon-ferrada over the río Sil across the Puente del Ferrado

On the Way: Ponferrada to Cacabelos
Ponferrada is named after the iron-reinforced bridge built there by Bishop Osmundo of Astorga at the end of the 11th century, for pons ferrata means iron bridge in Latin. We left the town, I suppose appropriately, through the bridge that gave the town its name and past the church of St. Peter, also built by Bishop Osmundo. The river we crossed was the Sil, and it joins with the Boeza river just below us. In the merger, it is the Sil that survives. We turned right off the calle San Pedro onto the avenida Huertas del Sacramento which merges into the avenida de la Libertad, and then out of Ponferrada through an industrial part of the town and what were once separate towns but now are suburbs of Ponferrada.

Through Compos-tilla

By Colum-brianos

Into Fuentes Nuevas

We crossed the suburb of Compostilla, passing by the power station of Ponferrada as we went uphill and around a curve. We walked by a hermitage and a well-kept residential area into the town of Columbrianos. From Columbrianos we took a paved road to Fuentes Nuevas, which we passed through by means of a street called the calle Real. On the left of the town was the hermitage of Campo del Divino Cristo. In the middle is the parish church. On the far end of town, a cemetery. Throughout it all are multiple vegetable gardens, all gated and fenced, and all fed with water from an irrigation system that runs along the road.





Campo-naraya

Descend the Hill of San Bartolo, through vinyards,

Once past Fuentes Nuevas and the ermita del Campo del Divino Cristo, we came upon Camponaraya, which is by the N-006-A carretera and between the río Requera and the río Nayara. We stopped at a café in town and had some soft drinks and olives. As we rested our feet, I looked around and watched the men of the town drink and play cards. They were all dressed alike, for all wore dark pants and short-sleeved white shirts. Only their drinks and the amount of gray in their hair varied. Oh yes, and their hands were different.
We left the café and traveled through the town. Past the arroyo Requer, the Camino descended in the vale between three hills, across the arroyo Magaz and the arroyo Valdemagaz into Cacabelos.
The land was fertile. Tobacco was grown here, as were onions, potatoes, tomatoes, melon, watermelon, cabbage, and lettuce. Orchards of cherry trees, apple trees, and pear trees abound. Only the cherries were ripe. The apples and pears are small and green as we walked by them. We also walked by some wonderful vineyards, that were full of the promise of good wine.
As we crossed into Cacabelos, we walked across a bridge over the carretera, which must have been fairly new, for it did not appear on any of our guides. At the end of the bridge we met Fred, a pilgrim who had been walking from Le Puy in France, where he had started the pilgrimage. He was Swiss. In his late 50s, Fred sold his orthopedic prosthesis store and decided to enter into a second career as a producer of videos. His English was fair, but limited and grammatically weak. But he spoke German well, and so what he was not able to convey in English he conveyed in German; what I was unable to convey in German, I conveyed in English. We walked with Eric into Cacabelos and, later than evening, had a pleasant dinner with him.
Carca-vellus



But Catholic men that live upon wine are deep in the water, and frank, and fine; Wherever I travel I find it so, Benedi-camus Domino.
(Belloc)

toward Cacabelos

Through Pieros by the Castro de Ventosa
In Cacabelos the Camino took us to the plaza of San Lázaro and its fountain. A hermitage dedicated to the saint (St. Lawrence) stood here once, but it does not any longer and so, but for the name of the plaza, there is no longer proof of the people’s devotion to the holy deacon and martyr. The town had a single-steepled stone church, dedicated to the Virgin, on a street of like name. It had a typically artesonado (panelled) ceiling, nave and aisles, and King describes it as “of the land and the town, homely as bread.”[ii]
The dinner at the mesón across the street from the hostal where we stayed was memorable. I had Gallegan-style soup: a broth-based soup, with beans, potatoes, and Galician cabbage. The main course was a mixture of sausage and pork chops. It would have given an Orthodox Jew, a Muslim, a Priscillian, or a modern vegetarian shivers. Only a Christian (who is not a Carmelite) could eat it with a clear conscience. Between the three of us, we consumed great quantities of wine. In times past, the wine here was strong and burned the sensitive gullet of some pilgrims. The German pilgrim, Hermann Künig, complained that the wine in this region on the way to Villafranca gave some pilgrims heartburn like the flame of a candle:
Darnach hastu 5 myl gen Willefrancken
Da drinck den wyn mit klugen gedancken
Dan er bornet manchem abe syn hertz
Das er ussgeht als ein kertz.[iii]

But the wine has bettered since the days of the pilger Künig and his Wallfahrt, or our palate was strong, for the wine in the area was fine, and not strong. It did not burn, yet it gave great warmth and yielded happy hearts. And with thankful hearts we three pilgrims from three different lands but common goal quaffed down goodly portions of wine from a land not our own, but withal within the limits of Christian and peregrine moderation.
After dining, Fred showed us his sketches of pen and ink and watercolor. They were sketches of the memorable places he had seen since Le Puy. He told us of his great adventures. He told us of the time he stayed in a French Abbey which had a gites d'étape or refugios that ministered to pilgrims. He took a wrong turn in those old halls in the vast medieval structure and surprised some cloistered nuns who frenetically ushered him out of the nunnery. He also told us of the time he slept in the barn of a French farmer, and made a bed between the farmer’s dog and the farmer’s pig.
We talked late into the evening and agreed to leave Cacabelos and walk to Villafranca together. We also agreed that, in view of the lateness of the hour when we split up, we would depart a little later than our usual 5:00 a.m.

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[i] Angelus Silesius, The Cherubic Wanderer (3:232), p. 81 (Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press, New York, 1986, transl. Maria Shrady).
[ii] King, II.363-64.
[iii] Aebli, Santiago, p. 208.

THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY

“O most loving Father, give unto me to behold for all eternity face to face Thine own beloved Son, whom now upon my pilgrimage I purpose to receive under a veil, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.”

____Oratio Sancti Aquinitatis Ante Missam[i]




Into Villa-franca del Bierzo

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Iglesia de Santiago de Peñalba

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Nuestra Señora de Cruñego


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San Francisco


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San Pedro


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Santa María

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San Nicolas


On the Way: Cacabelos to Villafranca del Bierzo
We departed Cacabelos rather late in the morning; indeed, later than we had planned the evening before. We had had a late dinner the evening before, and we knew that the weather would be cool the next day. There was, consequently, no need to depart early. Some German pilgrims on the side of the road delayed us yet longer as we reached the outskirts of Cacabelos. They hailed us to where they sat, and insisted that we try some of the piping hot sweetbreads that could be had for a farthing at the Panadería. I had a couple of freshly baked chocolate neapolitanos. It was so inexpensive Fred whispered under his breath that he felt he was stealing from the good-natured baker.
Thus fortified by the products of the baker’s trade, we walked briskly toward the town of Villafranca. Having crossed the río Cuu out of Cacabelos, we followed the arroyo Valdepedroño until we parted with it by bearing to the left by Pieros back onto the Camino. There is a church in Pieros, dedicated to St. Martin, with evidence that it dates back at least to 1086.
We walked north of the Cerro de Ventosa, atop of which is the Castrum Bergidum, the site of an old Asturian town, captured by the Romans. It is that ancient town’s name, at least the last part of it, that gave the name to this valley of the Bierzo.

Immediately beside an old farmhouse, Fred’s pack broke. The shoulder straps of his back pack had completely torn. He insisted that we go on as he repaired his pack. I gave him some nylon rope I had with me. I had a hunch that he intended to do more than fix his pack. I suspected he also intended to sketch a quaint farmhouse that stood nearby from the rock on which he sat to fix his pack. We said goodbye to the good pilgrim Fred. We were not to see him again.
From the farmhouse, the Camino crossed the arroyo Valtuille by means of a bridge, and just beyond the brook, on the pilgrim’s right, was the Venta del Jubileo, an old inn. From here we climbed until the Camino joined with the road from Valtuille de Arriba. We followed that road called the camino de la Virgen by turning left and heading down. The road led us, ever so gracefully, into the village of Villafranca del Bierzo.
Villafranca del Bierzo is the Villa Francorum, the town of the Franks, and it sat nestled in a valley at the confluence of the Burbia and Valcarce rivers and surrounded by mountains. The road led us directly to the church of Santiago, which we sought to enter to give thanks to God for a good and healthful walk, full of good thoughts, and a happy heart. Dating from the twelfth century, the church has an aged and worn multilobed north portal, called the puerta del Perdón. Pilgrims too sick or weak to continue to Compostela gained here—by special dispensation—the same spiritual benefits. The journey here was long enough, and for the old and infirm it took away the need to climb the range of mountains into Galicia. When it comes to sin, the Church, like God, like the Father of the Prodigal Son, appears sometimes rigorous if we persist in sin’s thrall, but always meets us more than half-way if we seek freedom from it.
The castle of the marquis of Villafranca, which dominates the town, was built in the 15th century. It is a square, crenellated structure of yellow rock, with four round, squat and barrel-looking towers, also crenellated, at its corners. The towers are topped with round tiled roofs that rise to a sharp point, and look like witches’ hats.
We stopped at an albergue in Villafranca, and met the hospitaller, a man named Gus. White-haired but hale, this German man was a gifted polyglot. He spoke his native German, and his acquired English and Spanish with perfect ease and nary an accent. He wondered at my Spanish until he discovered the land of my birth. Gus offered to take our packs up to the town of O Cebreiro, so to free us from their burdens on the difficult climb up the mountains ahead.
The offer was tempting, for release from the packs for one day promised greater distances and a great relief. I accepted the offer. “The packs,” I thought, “did not make a vow to take no wheeled thing, and I did not take a vow to walk with a pack.” I only had vowed only to take no wheeled thing. Gus’s offer left my vow untouched, unbesmirched. Even if there was some relationship between the pack and the vow, as Belloc observed the essence of a vow is in its literal meaning. The literal intendment of the vow allowed for it. And this was much less a breach—if it was one at all—than the more lax Belloc justified by that rule, for he rode on a cart and hung his feet of the edge dragging them on the ground and later even justified riding a train on his pilgrimage to Rome.







Villa Franca de bucca Vallis Carceris




Cruñego = Cluniac





Leave Villa-franca

Over the río Burbia to the río Valcarce









Follow the vía Romana north of the Valcarce and down toTraba-delo

Villafranca del Bierzo to O Cebreiro
From Villafranca to the town of O Cebreiro, the way was long and uphill. It would have been most difficult, and perhaps unachievable, with our packs. Villafranca is about 500 meters above sea level and O Cebreiro lies high in Sierra de los Ancares at 1,300 meters. A medieval cleric complained that these mountains, which divide Galicia from Castille, were difficult and wearisome to traverse. But he crossed during the cold of winter, and we did not. From Villafranca onwards the culture becomes notably Galician, though the provincial government remained Leonese until shortly before O Cebreiro where we formally passed from the province of León into the Galician province of Lugo. From Villafranca nearly to Santiago, the way is rural, the churches rustic, the homes humble.
Released from the burden of our packs we walked briskly uphill and out of the town of Villafranca. Once out of Villafranca we crossed the cold and crisp waters of the río Burbia and soon met the waters of the Valcarce. As we approached the Madrid-La Coruña highway (N-VI) we had to decide which way to go, for the guides posited three possibilities: (1) following the N-VI; (2) the vía Dragonte; and (3) the ruta Romana. We decided on the ruta Romana, bearing right just beyond the Burbia River. It took us up almost 500 meters to Pradela (1020 m.) via the southern face of the cerro del Real and the northern of the Pena de Roldán.
On the steep Roman route to Pradela we walked among chestnut trees with their catkins, and tall pines. These rose from the ground that was covered in broom and gorse and in rich green grass and ferns. The smell of resin filled the cool air, and we panted generously as we climbed up hill. Released from the weight of the packs, Randi and I made good time and passed dozens of burdened pilgrims.

I I I




Per gravia quidem itinera et laboriosus montes fridosque nivibus et glacie praete-ritae hiemis

Somewhere between the Cerro del Real and the Pena de Roldán between Villafranca and Trabadelo, I came across a clearing in the path. On the ground by the path, passersby had written messages using small stones. One read “Prisciliano Vive.”
Oh Priscillian! Ape of St. James! I could not tolerate your stain on the side of the hill. I could not countenance your illegitimate appropriation of the Apostolic Way, for the jurisdiction of the Councils of Toledo and Braga and the homilies of St. Turibius reached this far! Truth’s jurisdiction is the heart and so there is no sanctuary from it. A pilgrim’s feet follow his heart, and in my case both were given to St. James. So it was that my feet shuffled back and forth over the stones until the heretic’s name—the patron of magic, dualism, and revolt—was erased from the side of that hill. If I am accused of intolerance, I can only say, “Santiago made me do it!”
I I I


over the río Balboa, into Portela, Ambas-mestas, Vega de Valcarce, Ruitelán,


As I walked without the pack through the mountains, I thought how the pack was a spiritual analogy of the burden of a pilgrim’s inordinate affections. Contrary to the teachings of the dualists such as Priscillian, it is not the body that keeps us from union with the Divine, which is our goal, it is the burden of our inordinate affections. Only the pure in the body shall see God. There is no such thing as someone pure in the soul, but not in the body, although it may be the case that one is pure in the body, but not in the soul. Fundamentally, the call of Christianity is to be pure in both body and soul, for only the clean of heart shall see God. The heart is of both flesh and spirit.
From the top of the Peña de Roldán, we took a steep descent into the town of Trabadelo, which was by the highway. From the town of Trabadelo we walked on the narrow shoulder of the highway and were continuously threatened by large trucks that whizzed past us without care. So we walked past the arroyos Paradela and Valdelobos to the town of Portela del Valcarce. At Portela we stopped for a snack.
From Portela we left the highway and walked on a paved road, through the farms and fields of a narrow valley bordered by mountains. Upon crossing the río Balboa, we entered the village of Ambasmestas. The waters of the tributary Balboa mix with those of the río Valcarce, giving the town its name, which means mixed waters. As we passed through town, we paused to see a religious procession in which the whole town joined. It was the feast day of Our Lady of Carmel, and she must be patroness of the town, for an image of Our Lady headed the procession. There did not appear to be a single denize of the town who did not participate in the procession.




























Castrum Sarra-cenium
Further on, by the town of Vega de Valcarce, we saw the remnants of the 14th/15th century Castro de Sarracín to our left, and on the right we saw nothing of its companion castle, the Castro de Veiga, which one time stood guard in these parts. From these heights, the castles protected this defile from outlaws and armies. Now no longer needed and so for a long while, the castles have practically disappeared. Perhaps they were destroyed when no longer needed so that thieves, brigands, and other malcontents would not find them comfortable hideouts.




across the río Valcarce into Herrerías.
From Vega de Valcarce we headed downhill through a wood of beautiful chestnut trees to Ruitelán. Here in Ruitelán San Froilán and his disciple San Attilanus lived as hermits according to tradition. St. Froilán was later to become bishop of León and patron of the city of Lugo, and St. Attilanus bishop of the neighboring diocese of Zamora. At León’s cathedral I had prayed before the relics of San Froilán. A chapel in Ruietelán is dedicated to the holy bishop who died circa 905.
From Ruitelán we headed up a lovely trail on the mountain’s side to Herrerías, a tiny hamlet where the old Hospital Inglés, mentioned by Pope Alexander III in a papal bull of 1178, once operated. So did blacksmiths of strong arm and strong heart, for they wielded heavy hammers with great facility according to Picaud. I accepted both upon human faith, for my eyes saw neither sign of hammer or forge nor sign of a hospital here. I did not have the leisure to go searching for them, for my leisure had been given to St. James, and my heart was set on reaching the village of O Cebreiro.
I I I





















La Faba, Lamas, and Laguna de Castilla

León,
Castilla y León
=======
Lugo,
Galicia

From Herrerías on the architecture changed significantly. It became more Celtic and primitive. The uphill route from Herrerías to the town of La Faba is called by the locals the camino de la Faba. The walk was steep. The trail intertwined with the muddy bottoms of an arroyo, for we frequently walked on flagstones and boulders over flowing water. Finally, we crossed the arroyo Refogo by means of an old Roman bridge, and encountered the famous corredoiras, or mountain paths, which lead us to the town of La Faba. These corredoiras are narrow paths, used by the subsistence farmers and their carts, and they run under arches of trees, so it seems that one is walking through a dark yet airy tunnel of green. At times the corredoiras run deep in the ground, and walls of soil and stone rise up many feet on either side of the pilgrim. It is cool and fresh in the shade of these mountain paths.
The trees thinned out and the climb became less steep as we left the valley of the Valcarce below us on our climb to O Cebreiro through La Faba. At La Faba we saw our first palloza. The pallozas, the design of which were originally brought here by the Celts, are simple, rustic, and primitive structures with round walls built of rock, heavy square stone lintels, and roofed with thick straw thatch.

From La Faba we headed to Laguna de Castilla, a small, but prosperous farming village. It was the last town of the province of León. At a marker that divides the province of León and Galicia, I stopped. I kissed the soil of León on one side of the marker, and kissed the soil of Galicia on the other. I was careless in kissing the soil, and got dirt in my mouth. I spit—whether the soil was Leonese or Galician I did not know—but I spit it out in Galicia.
I I I

From Laguna de Castilla we climbed, with weary feet but happy hearts, into Galicia. “This country,” Picaud tells us, “is wooded. Provided with excellent rivers, meadows and orchards, and with plenty of good fruits and clear springs.” Of its fruits and of its peoples, Picaud tells us further:
Bread, wheat, and wine are scarce, but rye bread and cider abound, as do livestock and beasts of burden, milk, and honey. The sea fish is either enormously large or small. The land abounds in gold and silver, fabrics, the fur of wild animals and many other goods, as well as in Saracen treasures. The Galicians, ahead of the other uncouth nations of Spain, are those who best agree in their habits with our French people; but they are irascible and contentious.[ii]









Villaus = La Faba


















Portus mons Februarii inde hospitale in cacumine eiusdem montis in Gallecia


While we may have been pleased to enter into Galicia, we had yet happier hearts as we drew into the village of O Cebreiro. O Cebreiro is a humble hamlet grown around a church, whose origins as an ancient monastery founded to help the pilgrims to Compostela can be traced to the year 836. The apse of the church is slightly sunk into the ground, and it is built of heavy gray and rusticated granite, with a rugged flagstone roof. The church is surrounded by the primitive structures of Celtic design called pallozas. The inside of the church was small, but it had one nave and two side aisles nevertheless. A ponderous yet lovely stone crucifix commanded the square main apse. The main apse was of two bays, and had a barrel vaulted ceiling. The main nave was of three bays separated by square piers. Simple hammer-beam wood structures supported the weight of the flagstone roof. The beams rested on rock anchors that jutted out of the thick stone walls. The ceiling was of rough-hewn timber. Likewise, the side aisles had slanted ceilings of rough timber.
To the right of the crucifix at a side apse was a silver tabernacle on an altar. To its right a statue of Santa Maria La Real. Above the tabernacle was a large box of glass and within this box resting on red velvet were an old chalice, a paten, and a couple of vials or reliquaries. Before these implements I knelt, for here before me was the Mystery Most Great.
I I I

About the Way: The Mystery Most Great
The town of O Cebreiro is famous throughout Europe, and not just to the pilgrims of Compostela who pass through the Puerto de Piedrafita and tarry here. It is the town of the Mystery Most Great, for it is here that a great Eucharistic miracle occurred in the 1300s. The marvelous story is that a peasant from the nearby hamlet of Barxamajor climbed up the mountain trails during a winter storm to hear his daily Mass. The parish priest, whose faith in the Magnum Mysterium was weak, was offering Mass. When he saw the peasant’s sacrifice, the priest grew angry within, thinking the peasant a fool to come the distance in the cold of a winter blizzard to worship but wine and bread. But the real fool was the priest (the 15th century Spanish poet Lincenciado Molina called him a “clerigo idiota”), for he had caved into the testimony of his senses, and refused the sure guidance of the dogma of the Church and the Word of God. Following the consecration, clearly through no merit of the priest but by his ordination—ex opere operato not ex opere operantis—the host turned visibly into the Lord’s Flesh and the wine turned visibly into the Lord’s Blood, the accidents unusually following the usual substantial change.




Until you reach O Cebreiro, gateway to Galicia

i
O Cebreiro





Is this place of the Celtic pallozas the Monsalvat in Spain, scene of Richard Wagner’s last opera Parsifal? I do not know. But, in O Cebreiro I heard strains of music clear from Bayreuth. I think this may have been a miracle:
Wein und Brod des letzten Mahles The wine and bread of the last supper
Wandelt’ einst der Herr des Grales, Transformed by the Lord of the Grail
Durch des Mitleid’s Libesmacht, By the means of the power of the love
In das Blut, das er vergoss, In the Blood that He shed,
In den Leib, den dar er bracht! In his Body that was broken!

So Richard Wagner, who I’ve read referred to the autos sacramentales of the Spanish playwright-priest Calderón in writing Parsifal, wrote of the Mysterium Fidei in his libretto and his stave book; pity that for him and for us that, with his prodigious genius, he never engraved this Mystery in his heart.
Whether humble O Cebreiro was the scene of Wagner’s opera or not, it claims to be the scene of this great Eucharistic miracle, and I prayed before the very same. And the memories of the Holy Grail do run deep here, so much that the Gold Grail and the Holy Sacrament are charged on the coat of arms of Galicia, on a field azure under a crosslet and two pales of three crosslets each all argent. And I sung here sotto voce so that none but God could hear me that most wonderful of hymns in thanksgiving to the Sacrament, the Pange lingua of St. Thomas of Aquino.






Höchster Heiles Wunder!

Hoc est enim corpus meum

Pange lingua gloriosi. Corporis mysterium Sanguinis pretiosi Quem in mundi pretium

It is by this miracle, in the town of O Cebreiro, by the frenzy of God’s love, as Blessed Josemaría Escriva calls the Eucharist, that we spent a frenzied night in the small refugio here. The refugio is designed to house eighty pilgrims, but more than two hundred pilgrims were crowded in the refugio that evening. None of the hotels or hostals had any room—so a Norwegian pilgrim told us, and so the managers of the couple of hotels we checked confirmed. The reason for the great influx of pilgrims on the route is that many pilgrims, especially the youth groups, joined the route here; they are shuttled into O Cebreiro by buses and first begin their walk from these heights.
The bathrooms were foul. They had been overused and misused by thoughtless pilgrims, and smelled of urine and feces. I did not take a shower. I did not brush my teeth. I spent that night on the floor of a narrow supply closet, on two wool blankets, next to first aid supplies, kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and other sundries.
Thus O Cebreiro gave us a night of very little comfort and very little sleep. But I learned to be thankful or eucharistic for the little I had. It rained cold rain all evening and night, and I had a much better sleep than the many pilgrims who were forced to spend a miserable night outside.


W Waning crescent moon



k

[i] Source:
[ii] Melczer, Pilgrim’s Guide, at 96. “O most loving Father, give unto me to behold for all eternity face to face Thine own beloved Son, whom now upon my pilgrimage I purpose to receive under a veil, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.”

____Oratio Sancti Aquinitatis Ante Missam[i]




Into Villa-franca del Bierzo

k
Iglesia de Santiago de Peñalba

k
Nuestra Señora de Cruñego


k
San Francisco


k
San Pedro


k
Santa María

k
San Nicolas


On the Way: Cacabelos to Villafranca del Bierzo
We departed Cacabelos rather late in the morning; indeed, later than we had planned the evening before. We had had a late dinner the evening before, and we knew that the weather would be cool the next day. There was, consequently, no need to depart early. Some German pilgrims on the side of the road delayed us yet longer as we reached the outskirts of Cacabelos. They hailed us to where they sat, and insisted that we try some of the piping hot sweetbreads that could be had for a farthing at the Panadería. I had a couple of freshly baked chocolate neapolitanos. It was so inexpensive Fred whispered under his breath that he felt he was stealing from the good-natured baker.
Thus fortified by the products of the baker’s trade, we walked briskly toward the town of Villafranca. Having crossed the río Cuu out of Cacabelos, we followed the arroyo Valdepedroño until we parted with it by bearing to the left by Pieros back onto the Camino. There is a church in Pieros, dedicated to St. Martin, with evidence that it dates back at least to 1086.
We walked north of the Cerro de Ventosa, atop of which is the Castrum Bergidum, the site of an old Asturian town, captured by the Romans. It is that ancient town’s name, at least the last part of it, that gave the name to this valley of the Bierzo.

Immediately beside an old farmhouse, Fred’s pack broke. The shoulder straps of his back pack had completely torn. He insisted that we go on as he repaired his pack. I gave him some nylon rope I had with me. I had a hunch that he intended to do more than fix his pack. I suspected he also intended to sketch a quaint farmhouse that stood nearby from the rock on which he sat to fix his pack. We said goodbye to the good pilgrim Fred. We were not to see him again.
From the farmhouse, the Camino crossed the arroyo Valtuille by means of a bridge, and just beyond the brook, on the pilgrim’s right, was the Venta del Jubileo, an old inn. From here we climbed until the Camino joined with the road from Valtuille de Arriba. We followed that road called the camino de la Virgen by turning left and heading down. The road led us, ever so gracefully, into the village of Villafranca del Bierzo.
Villafranca del Bierzo is the Villa Francorum, the town of the Franks, and it sat nestled in a valley at the confluence of the Burbia and Valcarce rivers and surrounded by mountains. The road led us directly to the church of Santiago, which we sought to enter to give thanks to God for a good and healthful walk, full of good thoughts, and a happy heart. Dating from the twelfth century, the church has an aged and worn multilobed north portal, called the puerta del Perdón. Pilgrims too sick or weak to continue to Compostela gained here—by special dispensation—the same spiritual benefits. The journey here was long enough, and for the old and infirm it took away the need to climb the range of mountains into Galicia. When it comes to sin, the Church, like God, like the Father of the Prodigal Son, appears sometimes rigorous if we persist in sin’s thrall, but always meets us more than half-way if we seek freedom from it.
The castle of the marquis of Villafranca, which dominates the town, was built in the 15th century. It is a square, crenellated structure of yellow rock, with four round, squat and barrel-looking towers, also crenellated, at its corners. The towers are topped with round tiled roofs that rise to a sharp point, and look like witches’ hats.
We stopped at an albergue in Villafranca, and met the hospitaller, a man named Gus. White-haired but hale, this German man was a gifted polyglot. He spoke his native German, and his acquired English and Spanish with perfect ease and nary an accent. He wondered at my Spanish until he discovered the land of my birth. Gus offered to take our packs up to the town of O Cebreiro, so to free us from their burdens on the difficult climb up the mountains ahead.
The offer was tempting, for release from the packs for one day promised greater distances and a great relief. I accepted the offer. “The packs,” I thought, “did not make a vow to take no wheeled thing, and I did not take a vow to walk with a pack.” I only had vowed only to take no wheeled thing. Gus’s offer left my vow untouched, unbesmirched. Even if there was some relationship between the pack and the vow, as Belloc observed the essence of a vow is in its literal meaning. The literal intendment of the vow allowed for it. And this was much less a breach—if it was one at all—than the more lax Belloc justified by that rule, for he rode on a cart and hung his feet of the edge dragging them on the ground and later even justified riding a train on his pilgrimage to Rome.







Villa Franca de bucca Vallis Carceris




Cruñego = Cluniac





Leave Villa-franca

Over the río Burbia to the río Valcarce









Follow the vía Romana north of the Valcarce and down toTraba-delo

Villafranca del Bierzo to O Cebreiro
From Villafranca to the town of O Cebreiro, the way was long and uphill. It would have been most difficult, and perhaps unachievable, with our packs. Villafranca is about 500 meters above sea level and O Cebreiro lies high in Sierra de los Ancares at 1,300 meters. A medieval cleric complained that these mountains, which divide Galicia from Castille, were difficult and wearisome to traverse. But he crossed during the cold of winter, and we did not. From Villafranca onwards the culture becomes notably Galician, though the provincial government remained Leonese until shortly before O Cebreiro where we formally passed from the province of León into the Galician province of Lugo. From Villafranca nearly to Santiago, the way is rural, the churches rustic, the homes humble.
Released from the burden of our packs we walked briskly uphill and out of the town of Villafranca. Once out of Villafranca we crossed the cold and crisp waters of the río Burbia and soon met the waters of the Valcarce. As we approached the Madrid-La Coruña highway (N-VI) we had to decide which way to go, for the guides posited three possibilities: (1) following the N-VI; (2) the vía Dragonte; and (3) the ruta Romana. We decided on the ruta Romana, bearing right just beyond the Burbia River. It took us up almost 500 meters to Pradela (1020 m.) via the southern face of the cerro del Real and the northern of the Pena de Roldán.
On the steep Roman route to Pradela we walked among chestnut trees with their catkins, and tall pines. These rose from the ground that was covered in broom and gorse and in rich green grass and ferns. The smell of resin filled the cool air, and we panted generously as we climbed up hill. Released from the weight of the packs, Randi and I made good time and passed dozens of burdened pilgrims.

I I I




Per gravia quidem itinera et laboriosus montes fridosque nivibus et glacie praete-ritae hiemis

Somewhere between the Cerro del Real and the Pena de Roldán between Villafranca and Trabadelo, I came across a clearing in the path. On the ground by the path, passersby had written messages using small stones. One read “Prisciliano Vive.”
Oh Priscillian! Ape of St. James! I could not tolerate your stain on the side of the hill. I could not countenance your illegitimate appropriation of the Apostolic Way, for the jurisdiction of the Councils of Toledo and Braga and the homilies of St. Turibius reached this far! Truth’s jurisdiction is the heart and so there is no sanctuary from it. A pilgrim’s feet follow his heart, and in my case both were given to St. James. So it was that my feet shuffled back and forth over the stones until the heretic’s name—the patron of magic, dualism, and revolt—was erased from the side of that hill. If I am accused of intolerance, I can only say, “Santiago made me do it!”
I I I


over the río Balboa, into Portela, Ambas-mestas, Vega de Valcarce, Ruitelán,


As I walked without the pack through the mountains, I thought how the pack was a spiritual analogy of the burden of a pilgrim’s inordinate affections. Contrary to the teachings of the dualists such as Priscillian, it is not the body that keeps us from union with the Divine, which is our goal, it is the burden of our inordinate affections. Only the pure in the body shall see God. There is no such thing as someone pure in the soul, but not in the body, although it may be the case that one is pure in the body, but not in the soul. Fundamentally, the call of Christianity is to be pure in both body and soul, for only the clean of heart shall see God. The heart is of both flesh and spirit.
From the top of the Peña de Roldán, we took a steep descent into the town of Trabadelo, which was by the highway. From the town of Trabadelo we walked on the narrow shoulder of the highway and were continuously threatened by large trucks that whizzed past us without care. So we walked past the arroyos Paradela and Valdelobos to the town of Portela del Valcarce. At Portela we stopped for a snack.
From Portela we left the highway and walked on a paved road, through the farms and fields of a narrow valley bordered by mountains. Upon crossing the río Balboa, we entered the village of Ambasmestas. The waters of the tributary Balboa mix with those of the río Valcarce, giving the town its name, which means mixed waters. As we passed through town, we paused to see a religious procession in which the whole town joined. It was the feast day of Our Lady of Carmel, and she must be patroness of the town, for an image of Our Lady headed the procession. There did not appear to be a single denize of the town who did not participate in the procession.




























Castrum Sarra-cenium
Further on, by the town of Vega de Valcarce, we saw the remnants of the 14th/15th century Castro de Sarracín to our left, and on the right we saw nothing of its companion castle, the Castro de Veiga, which one time stood guard in these parts. From these heights, the castles protected this defile from outlaws and armies. Now no longer needed and so for a long while, the castles have practically disappeared. Perhaps they were destroyed when no longer needed so that thieves, brigands, and other malcontents would not find them comfortable hideouts.




across the río Valcarce into Herrerías.
From Vega de Valcarce we headed downhill through a wood of beautiful chestnut trees to Ruitelán. Here in Ruitelán San Froilán and his disciple San Attilanus lived as hermits according to tradition. St. Froilán was later to become bishop of León and patron of the city of Lugo, and St. Attilanus bishop of the neighboring diocese of Zamora. At León’s cathedral I had prayed before the relics of San Froilán. A chapel in Ruietelán is dedicated to the holy bishop who died circa 905.
From Ruitelán we headed up a lovely trail on the mountain’s side to Herrerías, a tiny hamlet where the old Hospital Inglés, mentioned by Pope Alexander III in a papal bull of 1178, once operated. So did blacksmiths of strong arm and strong heart, for they wielded heavy hammers with great facility according to Picaud. I accepted both upon human faith, for my eyes saw neither sign of hammer or forge nor sign of a hospital here. I did not have the leisure to go searching for them, for my leisure had been given to St. James, and my heart was set on reaching the village of O Cebreiro.
I I I





















La Faba, Lamas, and Laguna de Castilla

León,
Castilla y León
=======
Lugo,
Galicia

From Herrerías on the architecture changed significantly. It became more Celtic and primitive. The uphill route from Herrerías to the town of La Faba is called by the locals the camino de la Faba. The walk was steep. The trail intertwined with the muddy bottoms of an arroyo, for we frequently walked on flagstones and boulders over flowing water. Finally, we crossed the arroyo Refogo by means of an old Roman bridge, and encountered the famous corredoiras, or mountain paths, which lead us to the town of La Faba. These corredoiras are narrow paths, used by the subsistence farmers and their carts, and they run under arches of trees, so it seems that one is walking through a dark yet airy tunnel of green. At times the corredoiras run deep in the ground, and walls of soil and stone rise up many feet on either side of the pilgrim. It is cool and fresh in the shade of these mountain paths.
The trees thinned out and the climb became less steep as we left the valley of the Valcarce below us on our climb to O Cebreiro through La Faba. At La Faba we saw our first palloza. The pallozas, the design of which were originally brought here by the Celts, are simple, rustic, and primitive structures with round walls built of rock, heavy square stone lintels, and roofed with thick straw thatch.

From La Faba we headed to Laguna de Castilla, a small, but prosperous farming village. It was the last town of the province of León. At a marker that divides the province of León and Galicia, I stopped. I kissed the soil of León on one side of the marker, and kissed the soil of Galicia on the other. I was careless in kissing the soil, and got dirt in my mouth. I spit—whether the soil was Leonese or Galician I did not know—but I spit it out in Galicia.
I I I

From Laguna de Castilla we climbed, with weary feet but happy hearts, into Galicia. “This country,” Picaud tells us, “is wooded. Provided with excellent rivers, meadows and orchards, and with plenty of good fruits and clear springs.” Of its fruits and of its peoples, Picaud tells us further:
Bread, wheat, and wine are scarce, but rye bread and cider abound, as do livestock and beasts of burden, milk, and honey. The sea fish is either enormously large or small. The land abounds in gold and silver, fabrics, the fur of wild animals and many other goods, as well as in Saracen treasures. The Galicians, ahead of the other uncouth nations of Spain, are those who best agree in their habits with our French people; but they are irascible and contentious.[ii]









Villaus = La Faba


















Portus mons Februarii inde hospitale in cacumine eiusdem montis in Gallecia


While we may have been pleased to enter into Galicia, we had yet happier hearts as we drew into the village of O Cebreiro. O Cebreiro is a humble hamlet grown around a church, whose origins as an ancient monastery founded to help the pilgrims to Compostela can be traced to the year 836. The apse of the church is slightly sunk into the ground, and it is built of heavy gray and rusticated granite, with a rugged flagstone roof. The church is surrounded by the primitive structures of Celtic design called pallozas. The inside of the church was small, but it had one nave and two side aisles nevertheless. A ponderous yet lovely stone crucifix commanded the square main apse. The main apse was of two bays, and had a barrel vaulted ceiling. The main nave was of three bays separated by square piers. Simple hammer-beam wood structures supported the weight of the flagstone roof. The beams rested on rock anchors that jutted out of the thick stone walls. The ceiling was of rough-hewn timber. Likewise, the side aisles had slanted ceilings of rough timber.
To the right of the crucifix at a side apse was a silver tabernacle on an altar. To its right a statue of Santa Maria La Real. Above the tabernacle was a large box of glass and within this box resting on red velvet were an old chalice, a paten, and a couple of vials or reliquaries. Before these implements I knelt, for here before me was the Mystery Most Great.
I I I

About the Way: The Mystery Most Great
The town of O Cebreiro is famous throughout Europe, and not just to the pilgrims of Compostela who pass through the Puerto de Piedrafita and tarry here. It is the town of the Mystery Most Great, for it is here that a great Eucharistic miracle occurred in the 1300s. The marvelous story is that a peasant from the nearby hamlet of Barxamajor climbed up the mountain trails during a winter storm to hear his daily Mass. The parish priest, whose faith in the Magnum Mysterium was weak, was offering Mass. When he saw the peasant’s sacrifice, the priest grew angry within, thinking the peasant a fool to come the distance in the cold of a winter blizzard to worship but wine and bread. But the real fool was the priest (the 15th century Spanish poet Lincenciado Molina called him a “clerigo idiota”), for he had caved into the testimony of his senses, and refused the sure guidance of the dogma of the Church and the Word of God. Following the consecration, clearly through no merit of the priest but by his ordination—ex opere operato not ex opere operantis—the host turned visibly into the Lord’s Flesh and the wine turned visibly into the Lord’s Blood, the accidents unusually following the usual substantial change.




Until you reach O Cebreiro, gateway to Galicia

i
O Cebreiro





Is this place of the Celtic pallozas the Monsalvat in Spain, scene of Richard Wagner’s last opera Parsifal? I do not know. But, in O Cebreiro I heard strains of music clear from Bayreuth. I think this may have been a miracle:
Wein und Brod des letzten Mahles The wine and bread of the last supper
Wandelt’ einst der Herr des Grales, Transformed by the Lord of the Grail
Durch des Mitleid’s Libesmacht, By the means of the power of the love
In das Blut, das er vergoss, In the Blood that He shed,
In den Leib, den dar er bracht! In his Body that was broken!

So Richard Wagner, who I’ve read referred to the autos sacramentales of the Spanish playwright-priest Calderón in writing Parsifal, wrote of the Mysterium Fidei in his libretto and his stave book; pity that for him and for us that, with his prodigious genius, he never engraved this Mystery in his heart.
Whether humble O Cebreiro was the scene of Wagner’s opera or not, it claims to be the scene of this great Eucharistic miracle, and I prayed before the very same. And the memories of the Holy Grail do run deep here, so much that the Gold Grail and the Holy Sacrament are charged on the coat of arms of Galicia, on a field azure under a crosslet and two pales of three crosslets each all argent. And I sung here sotto voce so that none but God could hear me that most wonderful of hymns in thanksgiving to the Sacrament, the Pange lingua of St. Thomas of Aquino.






Höchster Heiles Wunder!

Hoc est enim corpus meum

Pange lingua gloriosi. Corporis mysterium Sanguinis pretiosi Quem in mundi pretium

It is by this miracle, in the town of O Cebreiro, by the frenzy of God’s love, as Blessed Josemaría Escriva calls the Eucharist, that we spent a frenzied night in the small refugio here. The refugio is designed to house eighty pilgrims, but more than two hundred pilgrims were crowded in the refugio that evening. None of the hotels or hostals had any room—so a Norwegian pilgrim told us, and so the managers of the couple of hotels we checked confirmed. The reason for the great influx of pilgrims on the route is that many pilgrims, especially the youth groups, joined the route here; they are shuttled into O Cebreiro by buses and first begin their walk from these heights.
The bathrooms were foul. They had been overused and misused by thoughtless pilgrims, and smelled of urine and feces. I did not take a shower. I did not brush my teeth. I spent that night on the floor of a narrow supply closet, on two wool blankets, next to first aid supplies, kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and other sundries.
Thus O Cebreiro gave us a night of very little comfort and very little sleep. But I learned to be thankful or eucharistic for the little I had. It rained cold rain all evening and night, and I had a much better sleep than the many pilgrims who were forced to spend a miserable night outside.


W Waning crescent moon



k

[i] Source:
[ii] Melczer, Pilgrim’s Guide, at 96.