THE THIRD DAY

“Whatever the order in which things are at, God comes before everything. He goes before us on the road, and is always there before us.”

____Henri De Lubac, Discovery of God[i]

Leave Zubiri


By the Zona Industrial Magnesitas de Navarra


Through
Ilárraz

On the Way: From Zubiri to Pamplona
I left Zubiri early in the morning. The air was cool and moist; the sky was overcast and gray and the clouds so low it was almost foggy. I was spooked by the clang of the bell of the Church of St. Sernin as I walked by it, for it struck without warning once to let the town know it was 6:30. I crossed the Puente de la Rabia and turned to the right up a hill. I heard a dog bark. I think it was Thor, because the bark came from the home of the Man of the River. I had heard Basques talk Basque in Zubiri. The bark of the dog and the Eusekera of the Basque were unlike, although I did not recognize a word of either. The language of the Basques was barbarous to Picaud, and reminded him of the canum latrancium, the barking of dogs. Maybe this was so to his French ear, but not to my American. Basques have names for God, the Mother of God, and St. James, according to Picaud Urcia, Andrea Maria, and Iaona domne Jacue, respectively. Dogs do not pray and do not talk of God and the Saints. The Basques with great facility are able to do both. Picaud had a wicked pen when he spoke of the Basques and the people of Navarre, and also one inaccurate. He offered spurious explanations for the origin and language of this people. But we must not be to hard on Picaud, for the origin of the Basques and their language is a mystery that remains not fully resolved even to this day. Their language is not Indo-european; it is a language isolate, without ties to any neighboring language.
I I I

From Zubiri to Pamplona the Camino follows the Arga River in the main, the exception being the few kilometers between the town of Arleta and the entry into Pamplona. Leaving Zubiri, I had to select a path, as I was confronted with an option. I could travel by the carretera on the west bank of the Arga for a while or I could travel on the east bank of the Arga, by the sloughs and refuse of an ugly magnesium plant. I chose the latter. Although the path chosen had its disadvantages, since it headed closer to the plant, I viewed that as a necessary evil, and that the lesser of two evils, and one only to be tolerated for a time and entirely unintended. I did not want to see the plant, but I did want to see some picturesque farms and towns along the east bank of the Arga and avoid the carretera.
Lector: What sort of pedantry is this?
Auctor: I was but thinking of the moral principle of double effect or unintended consequences.
Lector: Why pray you do such a thing? Is this a book on moral theology?
Auctor: Of course not. It is a book about a pilgrimage.
Lector: Then leave off the pedantry!
Auctor: I suppose a reflection on laxism, probabilism, probabiliorism, and tutiorism is out of the question?
Lector: Egads! No! Continue with your account, but be quick with it, or I shall throw this book away!

So, that is how (pedantically and the interruption notwithstanding) I chose to leave Zubiri.
The path was ugly, full of trash and iron pipes. The land about the place was raped and ruined. I heard the low whir and moan of the plant as I came upon it. The plant was fittingly named Magna. It was great in size, great things are built from it, and great is it as an eyesore. It took a full seven minutes at a brisk pace to pass it.

The path on the left banks of the Arga did provide the consolation once past the plant of passing by some picturesque farms and towns with evocative Basque names: Osteritz, Illaratz, Esquirotz, Setoain, and Irure. What was better is that, as I stopped to adjust the socks in my boot, Roberto and Manolo, the Spanish pilgrims I had met in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, caught up with me and we walked together off and on until we reached Pamplona. We drank the cool waters of all the fountains together between Zubiri and Pamplona, for the Spaniards had vowed to drink deep of all the local waters of Spain.





The barking of dogs and the prayer of Basques



Iaona domne Jacue













The principle of double effect on the Way


Over the rio Arga on Puente
at
Larrasoaña




By
Zuriain


The path took us past a number of arroyos; a large industrial farm; fluttering monarch butterflies; small clouds of black bugs and their Valkyrie dance; the acrid smell of a dead animal; and red poppies and their delicate, paper-thin blooms. Then we entered the town of Larrasoaña through a gravel road and crossed the Arga through a small bridge.
I I I

Larrasoaña, like so many villages on the Camino has one main street and one main street alone. The town had clout at one time, for it was home to Doña Urraca, the daughter of the King of Navarre, Sancho IV Garcés. That was long ago, and its past greatness is evident only by the coat of arms on the homes, the opinion of the townsmen, and in the rarely-read chronicles of the past. If you walk early at Larrasoaña, as we did, before the housewives wake, you will see cloth bags hanging on the doors holding warm bread left there by the baker.



Ressogna

By
Anchóriz and
Iroz

Cross the rio Arga

Skirt
Zabaldica

By
Arleta

Cross the rio Ulzama

k
Church of Trinidad de Arre

Through the suburb of Villava
and the suburb of Burlada

Under the puerta de Francia and the puerta de Zumala-cárregui



At Larrasoaña we had planned on breakfast, but we were detained at the albergue in the town by the hospitaller, Santiago Zubiri. He coaxed us into the alberque with the promise of breakfast he never delivered. He was an old salt with short, bandy legs, bald head, and barrel chest. His eyes were brown and friendly, but they were glazed over and dull. He was garrulous to the point of insensitivity, and he captured us in conversation for well over an hour. For a pilgrim, to lose an hour in the cool of the morning is a great loss. Santiago should have known, for he had made the pilgrimage twice to Compostela, as he had the documents to prove it. He showed us the place where Shirley McClaine had signed his log-in book, which was of scant interest to me. She had written some senseless comment that she wanted to be out of her body. It is senseless, for to be out of the body is to cease to be a pilgrim. It is to be dead; and after death comes Judgment, Shirley, not metempsychosis or transmigration of souls. How did you fail to see this truth, this idée fixe carved in stone on the myriad tympana on the Way?
We finally left the albergue and found a café at which I had a slice of torta de Santiago and two cafés con leche. Hunger and torpor both suppressed, we left Larrasoaña by recrossing the bridge out of town.
We travelled by the clear green Arga, and were treated to its many moods. There were times where its flow, frustrated by a weir, fell over its top in silver sheets; at times it gurgled over stones with lighthearted glee; in spots it appeared placid and morose. The paths at times rose with hills so high above the river, that it appeared a silent creek. But withal—past walnut trees, and cypress, and copious fields of golden wheat and barley—it was a steady and friendly companion, like the Spanish pilgrims I was with. At Akerreta, we crossed the river Arga, and headed to Zuriain, a small town built aside a hill and dominated since the 12th century through today, by the church of St. Stephen. From Zuriain we went to Iroz. From the town of Iroz we crossed the Arga again, by means of a restored medieval rock bridge of three arches—the middle one large, the lateral ones small. After the bridge, we followed the carretera or highway by the town of Zabaldica. On our right were high hills and an outcrop of natural rock that looked deceivingly like the bulwarks of a ruined castle.
A little further out from Zabaldica we departed the carretera to head to Arleta, a semi-abandoned hamlet, where the Bordeaux-Astorga Roman road once passed. At Arleta there were burial stones, bearing discs. Under one of these rests the mortal remains of a St. James man, perhaps one of his knights, for the burial stone bears the cross of Santiago. From Arleta we bore to the right and descended into Trinidad de Arre, crossing the highway and the río Ulzama by way of a medieval bridge with four arches.
At the village of Trinidad de Arre, there is a Romanesque church dedicated to the Trinity, once a foundation of the Hospitaller Order, the Knights of St. John.[i] Shortly after Trinidad de Arre the signs of the big city of Pamplona confronted us as we passed through Villava and Burlada, modern suburbs of Pamplona. Passing through the suburbs, we headed to the right into the Barrio de Magdalena or the Magdalene quarter.
In the Magdalene quarter we joined up with our riparian friend the Arga, and crossed over it by means of the Magdalena bridge, a well-built 14th century medieval bridge. At the foot of the bridge is a crucifix stone on a post, and below the cross on the post, a headless statute of Santiago Peregrino who greets his pilgrims’ entry into Pamplona.

At the other end of the bridge was a park, and there I took leave of the Spaniards, for they were in a hurry to get the the refugio, but I was not, and my feet hurt too much to continue. I rested in the shade, sitting against the trunk of a particularly fine pine tree at one end of the park. I ate and watched the hurried people of Pamplona.
I I I

The Camino enters Pamplona by way of the north, through a park bounded by the río Arga and the ancient walls of the city, the murallas. I had two thoughts upon seeing these massive walls.
First, I recalled that during his siege of Pamplona, Charlemagne prayed to St. James that the murallas of Pamplona should fall like those of Jericho. I arrived to Pamplona, not as a would-be conqueror or soldier, but as a pilgrim. So I did not ask good St. James for the murallas of Pamplona to fall, but I asked good St. James to set about whatever needed to be done there at the heavenly court to undermine those murallas of my mind and heart which separate me from the Lord. O Sancte Iacobe, da mihi capere illam!
I also thought upon seeing the massive walls of Pamplona that God is like the walls of Pamplona. He is too large for our mind, we cannot encompass him, we cannot comprehend him, and we cannot access his inner life without a gate. As I walked toward the puerta de Zumalacárregui which gave me access to Pamplona, I thought of the Incarnate Gate that allowed me access to the Incomprehensible God.
I I I













































































“O beate Iacobe, si verum est quod michi appa-ruisti, da michi capere illam!”


Into noble
Pamplona



Pamplona, in Roman tongue Pompaelo, the capital of the province of Navarre, is old. It is named after Pompey by everyone but the Basques, who call the city Iruña. The Roman general and statesman established this Roman town over Basque foundations in the 1st century before Christ. Charlemagne razed the city in the 8th century after Christ, 778 to be precise, later to rue his act, as the Basques, full of vengeance in their hearts, exacted a high cost from the Frankish king. Charlemagne paid for his folly with the loss of his entire rearguard, and his paladins Roland and Turpin and others, at the ambush of Roncesvalles. The city has been ruled by the Basques, then the Romans, then the Visigoths, then the Muslims, then by Navarre, then by the French, and then by Spain. Many Basques wish it to be ruled again by the Basques. It was soon to be ruled by insanity, for the Sanfermines and the running of the bulls was to take place in a little more than a week’s time.



Pampi-lona

The medieval city of Pamplona was composed of three distinct districts, each built around a church. The Navarrería, older than the others and one time occupied mainly by the autochthonous Basques and then also Castillians, is situated around the Cathedral. The relatively newer districts of San Fermín and San Nicolás, both populated originally by imigrant francos, are found around eponymous churches. The francos, free men of French descent, were invited here by King Alfonso el Batallador in the early parts of the 12th century, although many were likely here before.
The French and Basque districts enjoyed different privileges depending on whether they were under the the jurisdiction of crown or miter. In 1423 Charles III el Noble of Navarre promulgated the decree of union, and brought the three sections of the city under common municipal rule. After Navarre was annexed to Castille in 1512, however, friction developed between the various districts. During this time, the French Navarrese tried several times to take Pamplona.
I I I



About the Way: Iñigo and the Camino de Santiago
Of the many battles for the city of Pamplona by the French, one bore particular and (in human terms) completely unpredictable fruit. During Henri II d’Albert’s attempt to capture Pamplona in 1521, a Basque captain with the Castilian army, named Iñigo, was wounded in the legs by a canon ball shot into the citadel. The citadel surrendered, and this Iñigo was captured by the French. This Basque hidalgo later returned to his homeland in Loyola above Azpeitia in Guipuzcoa to recover from his wounds. During his convalescence, he was unable to put his hands on the picaresque novels of chivalry, so popular at the time. This forced Iñigo to read Castilian translations of the Life of Christ by the Carthusian monk Ludolph of Saxony and Voragine’s Golden Legend, a book on the lives of the Saints. This reading—or rather God’s grace through the reading—transformed him. In his Autobiography, as told to Louis Gonzalez de Camara, Iñigo told of the event in third person:
The thoughts of the past were soon forgotten in the presence of these holy desires, which were confirmed by the following vision. One night, as he lay awake, he saw clearly the likeness of our Lady with the holy Child Jesus, at the sight of which he received most abundant consolation for a considerable interval of time. He felt so great a disgust with his past life, especially with its offenses of the flesh, that he thought all such images which had formerly occupied his mind were wiped out.[ii]

Iñigo gave up his sinful life of the flesh, and led a life devoted to the greater glory of God, becoming for a time a pilgrim to the Holy Land, Rome, and possibly Compostela. This crippled captain later became general, but general not of another army, but one of a spiritual order: the Society of Jesus. Thus did St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, trade a whole leg and a maimed soul for a whole soul and a maimed leg, receiving in the trade the better end of the bargain. And it all began here, at the place where the Iglesia de San Ignacio now stands, God’s grace imparted through the most unlikely of means, an iron canonball. Who could have foreseen this Providence?
I I I




St. Ignatius of Loyala, pray for us!























6



k
Church of San Cernin

On the Way: Pamplona
In Pamplona I went to Mass at the Church of San Sernin. The French, who responded to the invitation of Alfonso el Batallador to imigrate into Pamplona, brought more than money and money lenders with them; they also brought a patron. This was San Sernin, or St. Saturninus, the bishop-martyr of Toulouse. This missionary bishop did not let mountains stand in the way of the Gospel, for he preached the Gospel cispyrenean and transpyrenean. Sometime during the course of his efforts on behalf of the God become Man, Saturninus was seized by pagan priests in the city of Tolouse. The ground justifying his capture was that the pagan oracles at the pagan temple were silenced whenever he walked in front of the temple. That they were silenced is fine with me, and I’m sure it was fine with St. Sernin, since the oracles were probably babbling nonsense anyway. Would that we had a contemporary saint who could cut out the babbling of our modern oracles such as the press or some of our celebrities. But the pagans did not take lightly upon this (they still don’t take lightly to it), and they turned rather violent about it. Dragged to the temple by the pagans and commanded to offer sacrifice to the pagan deities to propitiate them, the bishop refused. The pagan priests had the bishop’s feet tied to a bull, which dragged the bishop to death as it ran about the town with him in tow. The bishop’s body was taken up by two women, who hid it in a ditch, and from there retrieved it was his successor bishop.
I I I


As far as we know, no two stones of the old Pamplona Romanesque Cathedral—built by Pedro de Roda, the Cluniac reforming bishop through the hands of the stonemaster Stephen who also worked at Santiago de Compostela—remain paired. It stood at the site of the new Cathedral. It was purported to be beautiful, as beautiful as the moon, pulchra ut luna. As a result of a fire, however, it was ordered destroyed in the 14th century by command of Charles III. The only part that was not torn down then was the west façade. But in 1783, the original west façade was destroyed and replaced by a façade neo-classical in inspiration, thus leaving no trace of the old Cathedral. Historians of Romanesque architecture rue the loss. Be that as it may, it is gone, and for good or ill we must live with the “new” Cathedral, which is plenty ancient and plenty lovely; indeed, as lovely as the moon. One must list the Cathedral cloisters as among the things most lovely of the new Cathedral of Pamplona. They are Gothic in inspiration, and composed of tall, steep, gabled arcades, rich with ornate tracery. The tracery extends above the upper level of the cloisters. Touched by this stone that looks like lace, Victor Hugo wrote of this place: “Everything here is beautiful—the dimensions and proportions, the form and the colour, the overall unity and detail, the light and the shadow.”[iii] And so it is, here in Pamplona, where the wonders of stone of the city’s walls and the city’s churches can warm the heart with the beauty of their size and the size of their beauty.k
[i] This military order of knights still exists, and its formal name is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta. I shall call them here the Knights of St. John or the Hospitallers, since it would be an anachronism to refer to them as the Knights of Malta. The order acquired its name after *.
[ii] William J. Young, S.J., transl., St. Ignatius’ Own Story as Told to Louis González de Cámara, Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1980, p. 11.
[iii] Quoted in Jacobs, Road, at 41.

[i] Henri DeLubac, Discovery of God, at 9.