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I arrived early to get into the Santiago Cathedral for the noon Pilgrim’s Mass. 10:20 turned out to be plenty early and I suspect on this particular day even 11 am would have worked. I look around at 10:52 and there are still many places to sit. This cathedral, from the 13th Century, is on a grand scale. I posted pictures yesterday from the outside. Now inside, I still haven’t found any sort of bearing point in order to know how the interior relates to the exterior.

I wait in this magnificent space in awe of its antiquity and aware of the inseparable mix of myth, religion, history, and spiritual value found here and in so many of the other chuches and cathedrals I have seen in this journey of 34 days over a distance of 500 miles. The pews are now beginning to fill as a woman’s voice comes over the PA warning us against using flash on our cameras, but also shushing us with a “sssss” which overwhelms the murmering of the growing congregation of pilgrims.

Is it sacriligious to say within this cathedral, or even within the city of Santiago, that my pilgrimage has not been religious in nature? As I discussed yesterday with fellow pilgrim Sami, a doctor from Ontario, one does not have to proclaim religion if one’s reasons for walking the Camino are in fact spiritual. They are not the same, yet they do not exclude each other. I will stop at this point trying to form an argument one way or the other, but this has not gone unnoticed by the Pilgrim Office which issues the sought after (by many) Compostela. They offer a form to fill out which allows you to tic one of three boxes describing the nature of your pilgrimage: religious, spiritual, or neither. Both religious and spirtitual gets the Compestela in Latin, quite an impressive looking document, while the third group gets some lesser looking piece of paper.

I have ennumerated previously several reasons I can give for my pilgrimage. It started as a challenge – I wondered if I had within me the strength and will to walk 500 miles. The final answer came only upon my arrival yesterday in Santiago. But more importantly, I identified and distilled three reasons for this pilgrimage. I expressed them to many when I laid three small stones at the Cruz de Ferro, about 2/3 of the way to Santiago.

I. I am walking to remember family and friends, living and dead, who have contributed to who I am today. I am especially cognizant of my parents, who have both passed, my brother Mike who was taken by cancer much too young, and a great-nephew, Brody, who was still a young child when his life was lost. But I also intend to honor many others whom I have seen fall around me. Their lives are of value to me, just as the lives of the living contribute to my life in ways many might not realize.

II. For the many who cannot walk the Camino, or perhaps are looking for reason and encouragement to do so. I have shared this journey freely, glad to have so many following me. If the Camino de Santiago is on your bucket list, promote it to the top. Make the time. You don’t have to wait until retirement to take the journey, though advancing age should not discourage you either.

III. For having the health and fitness to make this journey as I quickly close on my 70th birthday, I am blessed.

My journey is not over. I intend to walk further beginning tomorrow, to what was believed by the first pilgrims of the Camino to be the end of the Earth. It will take 3-4 days to arrive at Finesterre, then one more day to reach the lighthouse at Muxia. I’ll certainly continue to share these further ventures within this blog and on Facebook.