THE FOURTH DAY

“Mornings, evenings, roads. Mysterious changing roads, full of the steps of man. Have I loved roads so much, our roads, the roads of the world? Is there any poor boy, brought up in their dust, who has not scattered there his dreams? And the slow, stately roads shall bear them on, to what unknown seas?”

Depart Pamplona



On the Campanas Road

On the Way: Pamplona to Óbanos
I left Pamplona early, in the dark, and walked on the sidewalks of the city toward the University of Navarre. I looked at some windows of what must have been a dormitory, for I saw some architecture students up early working on a project. Once past the University, I went right and followed the N-111 highway, crossed the río Sadar and the río Elorz, past some fields of wheat which reflected the light of the yellow quarter moon with a golden-brown hue. The air was fresh, and its cool freshness impressed itself on my face by a brisk breeze. My feet were sore early as the road veered southward to follow the Campanas road to the town of Cizur Menor. Past a row of cypress trees I came upon a railroad track; a train happened by and unsettled the quiet of the dawn; but by the time I crossed the tracks, peace had been regained, and the only sound I heard was the muffled steps of my pilgrim feet. Up atop a rise, far away, amidst fields of wheat all lit by the coming light of dawn, I saw a Romanesque church and some other buildings. It was Cizur Menor.








Cross the río Arga

Through Cizur Menor

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Church of St. John of Jerusalem
It was at Cizur Menor—where the Knights of Malta man the pilgrim albergue and fly the Order’s flag atop the tower in the flatland between Pamplona and the Sierra del Perdón—that the fabulous Pseudo-Turpin says the army of Aigolandus, the Saracen, and the army of Charlemagne, the Frank, straddled one side and the other of the Camino. The armies so poised, Aigolandus and Charlemagne partook in a theological dialogue that led to trial of theologies by war. I stopped at the Church of St. Michael, atop the hill. By the old ashlar blocks that formed the apse of that church I ate some breakfast and drank some water and saw the flickering lights of far-off Pamplona and watched the flag of the Knights of Malta flutter in the early morning breeze atop the Church of St. John of Jerusalem.
I I I






Ave Crux Alba!

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Through not quite aban-doned Guend-ulain

By Zari-quiegui


At Cizur Menor the road to Campanas, which I had been following, departs the path of the Camino, for it turns southwest to its intended goal of Campanas. Pilgrims, on the other hand, are supposed to go west south-west sauntering over a path of weeds to the near-abandoned village of Guendulain. So I did just that. As I walked I heard the bells of St. Michael’s church strike seven times twice. From Guendulain, I could see the peak of Monte Perdón, the Mount of Forgiveness, the north slope of which I aimed, and I traversed the llanura de la Taconera. The path here grew narrow, and the fields of wheat so thick, that I could have hid both my hands in spikes and awns had I extended out my arms. The wind seethed and hissed and whistled as it courted the heads and stalks of wheat while effortlessly wending its way up to the Monte Perdón.
I came upon an old, grey abandoned Romanesque church atop a hill in the distance on my right. It sat like an old statue of an unknown saint beyond a barn and vegetable garden. It drew me with the haunted aura of mystery that forgotten and abandoned structures and attractive nuisances wield. Hay was stacked around in tall piles. There were sheep here huddled under a lean-to, and they were guarded by a make-shift scarecrow of sticks and a blue and orange winter coat. I headed toward it.
But the sheep were also guarded by dogs. And as I got close to the church, the dogs began to bark, and bark aggressively. I had plainly violated their territory. It was judicious for me to depart, and that quickly. The church would have to go unvisited. The dogs barked at me for several minutes as I walked away. I passed a cement marker; atop it under a rock and in a plastic bag was a note, in English, to a pilgrim and a prayer book to the virgin-martyr St. Dymphna. Eventually, as I neared the town of Zariquiegui, the dogs tired and the barking ceased, but not for long. The dogs began to bark again at some other pilgrim behind me who had fallen into the same trap.
I finally reached the town of Zariquiegui. The Camino runs through this town, and, like the town of Urtega just ahead, the way is almost covered by the eaves of the old homes proudly bearing armorial shields, which represented each family as if it were an institution. By the church at Zariquiegui at a stone fence, I sat; I drank some water from a fountain nearby, asked a local if there was a place of breakfast, and learned there was none. As I thought about what to do, I befriended a Spanish dog. To my chagrin, the dog was host to an army of fleas, and a whole regiment of fleas debouched upon me like Greeks off the Trojan horse as I scratched his back.
I I I

Singuli per turmas, signa, atque vexilla, et domos cognationum suarum
Num. 2:2

By the Alto de Perdón
(1039 m.)
into Uterga




I headed toward the Sierra del Perdón. The modern three-bladed windmills atop the hill had a dull roar, very like the drone of a jet high above the earth. They feed the residents of Pamplona with current who are hungry for electricity. The wheat fields ceased at the hill’s edge, and I climbed past rock, brush, and wild flowers of every hue and shape.
On the Way: The Fountain of Denial
This was the location of the legend of the fuente Reniega, that is, the Fountain of Denial. Legend has it that a pilgrim from Toulouse reached this summit exhausted and thirsty. The devil, as is his wont, promised to tell the thirsty pilgrim of the whereabouts of a hidden fountain, with the condition precedent that the pilgrim renounce God, the Virgin, and St. James. The pilgrim remained firm, rejected the temptation, cursed the devil and prayed to St. James. St. James, dressed as a pilgrim, then appeared deus ex machina and himself carried the faithful pilgrim to the Fuente Reniega. There, St. James quenched the pilgrim’s thirst by giving him water of the fountain, ladeled by a pilgrim shell. The denial here, then, is not modern cowardly or simply negligent denial of God, but the courageous denial of temptation and the pursuit of virtue. To succeed one needs God and the Saints. That is what the Way is about. The story of the Fuente Reniega is a capsule of the Way of St. James.
I I I






Medie-vallly, Sierra de la Reniega






Vade retro me satana

Through Muruzábal


On the Way: Muruzábal and the Meal Most Memorable
The wind blew briskly and continually atop the Sierra del Perdón, for here the way of the winds crossed the way of the stars. I paused and rested at the top by a monument, but it was not good to rest here: it was cold and the wind too strong and it blew disconcertingly around the ears.
From the heights of the Sierra del Perdón it was a slow, painful descent, into the long valley of Valdizarabe, which gives name to one of the wine regions with the denominación de origen Navarre. The path was strewn with white rock, and there were low-growing chopos or oaks growing thickly on either side. I had trouble going down the steep descent, and I walked slowly. A pilgrim passed me unbeffitingly (I thought) singing “Yellow Submarine,” for the pilgrim to Compostela lives not a life of ease and he sails west, away from the sun.
The descent softened and the Camino led me past some harvested wheat fields which were a dull straw color, past a hillock, through some sunflower fields, and into the town of Uterga. I was joined by Roberto and Manolo, and later Randi, and we walked from Uterga into the town of Muruzábal, hoping there to have some breakfast.
Muruzábal had no breakfast for us, at least not until noon when the only café in town was scheduled to open. So Roberto, Manolo, Randi, and I replaced breakfast with an early lunch. We sat at some tables in the main square and Manolo shared his food with us. Manolo carefully cut up his sausage—some fuet de Vic (a Catalán sausage) and some chorizo from Pamplona—cheese, and bread. We had neither plate, nor napkin, nor silverware. But there, in Muruzábal, caressed by a gentle Navaresse breeze which bore the faint scent of vinyard and olive grove, under the shade of the eaves of old and weathered stone homes, we fortified ourselves with his Spanish foodstuffs and discussed our trip to the Templar church at Eunate. Though a poor man’s meal and simple, as a pilgrim’s meal should be, it will rank as a Meal Most Memorable. For the meal was of the Spanish earth; it came to me free; and it was all bound up and flavored with the prodigious charity of Manolo’s generous Spanish heart.
I I I

Just south of Muruzábal was the camino Aragonés. From the time the camino Aragonés and the camino de Navarre cross the Pyrenees they head toward each other and join at Óbanos, if you happen to be from Óbanos, or at Puente la Reina a short distance further, if you happen to be from Puente la Reina. Both towns lay claim to being the location of the joinder, and there are pilgrim monuments at the outskirts of both towns. As far as I know, this rivalry over the precise location of the junction of the camino Aragonés and the camino de Navarro has never gotten out of hand; nor has it ever been resolved. The pilgrim may focus or not focus on this dispute over a three-kilometer walk—the distance between the two towns—and he may choose Óbanos over Puente la Reina or Puente la Reina over Óbanos, or he may choose not to choose at all. I recommend you do not focus at all on the issue. By the time you leave Puente la Reina the issue is rendered moot, for by then the roads are most assuredly joined into that glorious channel of pilgrims, the Camino Francés.
In either event, the roads are close, and this was convenient, for we wished to see the 12th century octagonal and Romanesque church of Nuestra Señora de Eunate, one time church of the Knights Templar. It is built over the remains of many medieval pilgrims and it sits on the camino Aragonés.
I I I


On the camino aragonés for a short while


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Nuestra Señora de Eunate

On the Way: Detour to Eunate
Following our common meal, we retraced a steps for a while. We passed the church at Muruzábal then went downhill away from the town on a paved road. Mountain peaks were ahead and slightly to our left. We left the paved road to a dusty, white road, and headed toward the sun, through a patchwork of ocher and aureate fields of wheat, flaxen hay, and the lush-green stalks of sunflowers still unblooming. We crossed some vinyards also to our left and I saw the church of Eunate and its hermitage ahead, slightly to the right. We passed by a small white, stuccoed church with an earthy-red clay tiled roof and an empty bellcote. At a vineyard, the road bent sharply to the right, and soon ahead we crossed a highway into the church.

Like the corbels and capitals of the church which are weathered and worn by the sun and wind and rain, the church at Eunate is a worn and ancient Mystery. It is the Mystery of One Hundred Doors and it worships the Mystery of God’s Incarnation. The Mystery of His Birth. The Mystery of His Life. The Mystery of His Passion. The Mystery of the Holy Sepulchre. The Mystery of His Death and the Shroud of His Burial. The Mystery of His Rising from the Dead. The Mystery of His Ascension. The Mystery of His Coming Again.
Pilgrims are buried about here, and the wind goes around the church in circles, as we learned when Roberto lost his hat and I chased it round about the church. Later on, I sat on the wall encircling the church and leaned against the pillar opposite the door opposite the apse. I closed my eyes and took to rest. The wind joined the Mystery of the One Hundred Doors and they rushed together about me, lifted my soul to the heavens, and spoke in my ears and my heart. I thought I heard in the wind the cries of former pilgrim souls, some in great torment, but the greater number in beatific joy. And I prayed that my family and I be counted among the latter.


Turn around toward and head West again to Óbanos

I I I

All good things on this earth must end. So too the wonder of Eunate gave way to the need to move on. We were only a short distance from the town of Óbanos, and we got there from Eunate by means of a dirt path that took us through farms and harvested fields of hay.




O


By Óbanos


About the Way: The Murdered Saint and the Sororicide Saint
Óbanos is setting for the famous hagiographical tale of Santa Felicia and San Guillermo. It is said that Felicia of Aquitaine, returning from her pilgrimage to Compostela and driven by a thirst for things of the spirit, disclaimed her nobility and embraced a life of poverty in the nearby town of Amocain. This brought her brother, the Duke Guillaume, to worry, and he sought her out to compel her home. Unable to impose his will on her, he grew furious. In the heat of passion, he stabbed her to her death. Oh Irrational Passion! He rued the act and travelled to Rome on a penitential pilgrimage to confess his sin, the best thing he could think to do being that he could not bring her back to life. In Rome he received the penance to go on pilgrimage to Compostela, which he did, and, on his return, went by Óbanos. There he remained, a hermit and penitent until the end of his days. The Spaniards now call him San Guillermo, St. William, and the hermitage atop Monte Arnotegui is dedicated to him. There is a 13th century image of San Guillermo—the sororicide turned saint—in the parish church at Óbanos, San Juan Bautista. The church also contains a silver reliquary of his skull.
I I I





Vos cogitastis de me malum: Sed Deus vertit illum in bonum.
Gen. 50:20


Into
Puente de la Reina





On the Way: Óbanos to Puente la Reina
Puente la Reina is on the banks of the River Arga. The town is an important one in the life of the Camino, and owes its development to King Alfonso of Navarre, nicknamed el Batallador, as much as to anyone else. In 1122, Georgiana Goddard King tells us, King Alfonso endowed it with “privilege of wood cutting and tillage, and water free,” to encourage “all peoples” to settle there. She continues: “When he wrote that phrase about all peoples, he meant more than Navarrese, or even Spaniards: Lombards and Pronvençals, Normans and English, Flemings and French, Burgundians, Germans and Dutch, Hungarians, Irish, Tuscans and Romands and half Saracen Sicilians, all who passed incessantly on the same journey westward, under the bright stars.”[i] As the Lord would have it, hearts in every principality in Europe answered King Alfonso’s call, and they traveled one and all hither by this road that I have trod.




Pons Regine


Y desde aqui todos los caminos a Santiago se hacen uno solo

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Santa María de la Vega y del Crucifijo
We entered the town of Puente la Reina by the main street, the Rua Mayor, also known as the Rua de los Romeros, nothing other than the ancient pilgrims’ route. Richard met us there. At the east of the town is found the Iglesia de Santa María de la Vega y del Crucifijo, originally part of a monastery and hospice, but now joined to the 18th century Convento de los Reparadores by an arch. The church is an old Romanesque structure. Its southern portal is richly carved—perhaps by Moorish craftsmen—with scallop shells and grotesque beasts as motifs. The north wall was torn down in the 14th century and a Gothic wing was added. The Gothic wing houses an unusual Y-shaped crucifix carved of wood. It is said the crucifix was brought here by a German pilgrim. The Romanesque image of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Fields is one of the oldest in Navarre.

Y
Later that evening, we went to Mass at the 12th century Church of Santiago. The portal that welcomed us into the church was elaborately carved with cusped arches which betray the influence of the Moor. The rock must have been soft and the environment harsh, for the carvings were woefully damaged by the elements. The rest of the church was mainly from the 16th century, but for the bell-tower, an 18th century work. The wooden floor of the church covers wooden tombs, typical of this area of Spain. It is neither the first nor the last time in the Camino that we walk over the dead. We prayed here, as in other places where we are reminded of the dead, Requiescant in pacem. In the church, on the side wall, was a statute of Santiago, before which I prayed to God and to St. James to favor me on my journey. This Santiago is named El Betza, the dark one, as he is of dark skin and curled hair.


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Iglesia de Santiago

The priest who said the Mass had left his Roman rubrics at the door, as the Mass he said had rubrics of his own making and he got a lot of the liturgy wrong. But despite the priest and his foolish and awful liturgical novelties which distracted me, the Mass was valid. And in his homily the priest did say something right, for he reminded us that the Camino is linked to Christ, for it is Christ that we pilgrims must seek and find on the Camino. The Camino is about a Person. Ego sum Via. Yo soy el Camino. I am the Way.

At Communion, Randi got up to receive and it created quite a stir. Richard wanted to inform her she should not receive, and I thought that would be unwise.
“She shouldn’t be taking Communion,” he insisted for she was not Catholic.
“I agree, but that isn’t the issue,” I replied.
“But it’s wrong, and she should be told it.”
“She is wrong objectively,” I agreed, “but is blameless subjectively and she should not be told it now, for what she does she does in ignorance, and there are times when we may leave a person in ignorance.”
Richard did not understand. So I explained the best I could.
“Randi said she was ‘nothing’ at the beginning of the trip, but you and I have seen a change in her. We have seen her pray, she has repeatedly gone to Mass, and she knows not the full meaning of communion. Besides, I think it is her conscience that has prompted her to take communion, and even though it may be wrong, there is no sin in following it; indeed, there is sin in not following it.”
I thought that a harsh word now—though true—might squelch the Danish heart that I perceived had opened up in a fashion to God and to His Church. How could God be hurt by her communion? There would be a proper time and a proper place to tell her. Some time later, much closer to Santiago I did tell Randi that among other things, participating in the Eucharist through sacramental communion signified she assented to all the teachings of the Church and thus bespoke of a heartfelt communion with the Church. Upon learning this, she ceased. But it was not the Church’s rule that made her cease, nor was it my word; it was her conscience, the same conscience that in ignorance had prompted her to take the Eucharist in the first place.









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[i] King, vol. *, at *.
____Georges Benanos, Diary of a Country Priest[i]
[i] George Bernanos, Diary of a Country Priest, p. ?