Explore articles:
Pilgrim Beatitudes
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you discover that the camino opens our eyes to what one cannot see.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you are not so much concerned about arriving, but arriving with the others.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if looking at the camino you discover it is filled with names and sunrises.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you’ve found out that the Camino begins where it ends.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if your backpack keeps getting emptied of things & your heart does not know where to hang so many emotions.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you understand that a step back to help someone is worth a thousand steps forward without looking at your side.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if words fail you to thank for all that surprises you at every twist in the road.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you look for the truth and make of your camino a life and of your life a camino in search of what is the Way (the Camino), the Truth, and the Life.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if on your way you meet yourself and give yourself all the time in the world not to neglect the image of your heart.
Blessed are you, pilgrim, if you discover that the camino is a lot about silence; and silence, about prayer; and prayer, about the encounter with the Divine waiting for you.
The Way: Parable and Reality
The journey makes you a pilgrim. Because the way to Santiago is not only a track to be walked in order to get somewhere, nor is it a test to reach any reward. El Camino de Santiago is a parable and a reality at once because it is done both within and outside in the specific time that it takes to walk each stage, and along the entire life if only you allow the Camino to get into you, to transform you and to make you a pilgrim.
The Camino makes you simpler because the lighter the backpack, the less strain on your back and the more you will experience how little you need to be alive.
The Camino makes you brother/sister. Whatever you have you must be ready to share because even if you started on your own, you will meet companions.
The Camino breeds about community, community that greets the other, that takes interest in how the walk is going for the other, that talks and shares with the other.
The Camino makes demands on you. You must get up even before the sun in spite of tiredness or blisters; you must walk in the darkness of night while dawn is growing, you must get the rest that will keep you going.
The Camino calls you to contemplate, to be amazed, to welcome, to internalize, to stop, to be quiet, to listen to, to admire, to bless…Nature, our companions on the journey, our own selves, God.
We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes,
but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
Martin Luther-King (1929 – 1968)
Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend.
Anonymous. Attributed to Albert Camus (1913-1960)
If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher.
I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.
Confucius (551BC – 479BC)
It is not the road ahead that wears you out – it is the grain of sand in your shoe.
Arabian Proverb
Pilgrims are poets who create by taking journeys.
Richard R. Niebuhr (1894-1962)
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1628 – 1688)
If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress. Barack Obama
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1819-1892)
I remember my first lesson on the pilgrimage was the lesson of receiving. I had been on the giving side for many years and I needed to learn to accept as gracefully as I had been able to give, in order to give the other fellow the joy and blessing of giving. It’s so beautiful when you live to give. To me it’s the only way to live because as you give you receive spiritual blessings.
Peace Pilgrim (1908-1981)