Browsing Pilgrim 206
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“Light on the Road. Association of León”. Photograph in byn, with the baptismal font of Redecilla del Camino (Burgos) in the foreground and then a pilgrim with her back to it contemplating one of the oculi of the temple…
Editorial
Those of us who work daily with statistics on the pilgrimage (which this magazine has been doing since issue 0, p. 8-10) know how much effort this entails, especially if the work has been carried out methodically and over a long period of time.
In this chapter, we must recognize the work carried out for more than 25 years by two very appreciated and beloved entities: the Pilgrim’s Office of the Cathedral of Santiago, which began its statistical work in the holy year of 1993; and the Association ‘Pulchra Leonina’ of León, which since 1996 has been conducting a comprehensive study on the passage of pilgrims through León, province and capital.
And while we are on the subject of statistics, we would like to emphasize that with the data from the first three months of this year (not counting Holy Week, which took place in April), almost 30% more pilgrims had arrived in Santiago than in 2022…
Home page
“Light on the Road. Association of León”. Photograph in byn, with the baptismal font of Redecilla del Camino (Burgos) in the foreground and then a pilgrim with her back to it contemplating one of the oculi of the temple…
Editorial
Those of us who work daily with statistics on the pilgrimage (which this magazine has been doing since issue 0, p. 8-10) know how much effort this entails, especially if the work has been carried out methodically and over a long period of time.
In this chapter, we must recognize the work carried out for more than 25 years by two very appreciated and beloved entities: the Pilgrim’s Office of the Cathedral of Santiago, which began its statistical work in the holy year of 1993; and the Association ‘Pulchra Leonina’ of León, which since 1996 has been conducting a comprehensive study on the passage of pilgrims through León, province and capital.
And while we are on the subject of statistics, we would like to emphasize that with the data from the first three months of this year (not counting Holy Week, which was in April), almost 30% more pilgrims had arrived in Santiago than in 2022…
Associations / News
Once again this year, the ‘Pulchra Leonina’ Association of Leon is carrying out the usual round of visits to the institutions of Leon: City Council, Provincial Council, Government Subdelegation, etc., to personally present to the authorities the statistical study that the association has been carrying out for 26 years.
In the visits carried out in March of this year, on the 10th, we were at the Provincial Council with the Deputy of Tourism and on the 27th at the Government Subdelegation with the subdelegate Faustino Sanchez.
Both visits were attended by the president of the León association, Anselmo Reguera, and the vice-president, José Buzzi, who is also the author of the study. The report corresponds to all pilgrims staying both in the Albergues and in the ‘hostel’, which last year totaled eleven establishments and in which 33,329 pilgrims have stayed overnight.
This figure is still far from the peak recorded in 2017, when 55,108 pilgrims passed through León, but clearly higher than in recent years, after the real debacle in 2020 due to the pandemic…
International / News
We are already in spring and in Easter time and when I was surfing the seas of internet to prepare this article I found a beautiful picture of Easter eggs with Jacobean decoration and this suggestive text: “We cannot go to Santiago every year, but we can always remember those who go and ask for them the strength and the Spirit of the Camino, which is a transforming Gift”.
May this intention and this spirit guide us in this Easter season that has just begun, which for the Camino and for those of us who dedicate ourselves to it in one way or another, is the beginning of a peak period due to the forecasts, once again, to continue breaking records of walkers in this 2023…
Interview
“Where did your walk begin, Father?
Father Marc-Olivier: I set out on foot from Mont Saint-Michel, the famous Norman abbey battered by the winds and waves of the English Channel, on September 14, 2022; it is a variant of the Via Turonensis; it is called the “route of the capitals” because it crosses Rennes and Nantes, the two historic capitals of Brittany.
After Bordeaux and Dax, I left the road to Santiago to go to Lourdes, where a greeting to the Immaculate Virgin was required. After this stage I reached Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and recovered the French Way. The detour to Lourdes lengthened my route a bit, which was close to two thousand kilometers…”
Jacobean themes / Environment / The Primitive Way is on fire
“In the first days of April Asturias faced 122 fires in just 24 hours.
These fires ravaged the entire Principality and spread panic and despair among the neighbors and professionals who were facing the flames of what was called “the most destructive fire in the last fifty years”.
All daily life was interrupted and, as could not be otherwise, the Camino de Santiago also suffered the destructive effect of the fire, to the point that the authorities decreed the closure of a good number of kilometers in several Asturian Jacobean trails…”
Compostela / News / The pilgrimage recovers its pulse
“Spring is back and the days are lengthening, come, pilgrims.
During Holy Week they did so by the thousands: 2,231 on Good Friday. With a new feature… IT to improve Reception.
A machine prints the Compostela, with the Latin name and signature of the canon included, (brrr!) for the nostalgic: no autograph) and in the meantime there is more time for the person issuing it to exchange impressions with the newcomer…, how’s that? It evokes primary care whose physicians have achieved more minutes for each patient….
But it heralds greater warmth at the finish line…”
Other Entities / News
“A diamond in the rough that must be polished, but first it is advisable to decide which model to pursue, so as not to confuse ourselves or others.
We are talking about a pilgrimage route, a personal, transcendental experience, which requires an environment that favors the experience of those who walk it, with spaces and services to enjoy it, to reflect, to communicate with the environment, landscape and landscape…
But it influences the pilgrim to choose one route or another, from a certain distance… sometimes with an excess of information that only distracts the pilgrim and turns the Camino into a fair from which everyone wants to profit…”
Report / Light, gloom, shadow and contemplation. 50 years of equinoctial and solstitial light on the Camino
“It has been fifty years since Jaime Cobreros and Juan Pablo Morín, when they were preparing their book on The Initiatory Road to Santiago, a route they had taken one or two years before, stopped in San Juan de Ortega to take some photographs and chatted with the priest who had been there since before the civil war and who was already half blind, who also attended them when they passed by for the first time and who warned them that in the passage from winter to spring (March, around the 19th to 21st) and from summer to autumn (September equinox, around the 21st to 23rd), he had been observing that the sun was illuminating the capital of the Annunciation.
This was enough for the two visitors to commit to returning. They came back, saw it, and published it in the book…”
Hospital / News / Ponte d’Arbia. The Via Francigena Bridge
“The day is looking splendid; we are traveling south. A few kilometers before we have left behind the towers of the city of Siena.
We are a group of volunteer hospitaleros, already veterans, gathered under the name of Accoglienza Pellegrina. For some years now, we have been offering our availability as hospitalers in hostels along the Via Francigena, offering hospitality to pilgrims on their way to Rome. Our current destination is the valley of the Arbia river, next to which small and medium-sized villages have been settled for centuries.
The landscape captures us by its beauty and sweetness. It is spring and the fields are incredibly green, with different shades bordered by rows of white hawthorn blossoms. In turn, the roads can be recognized by the rosaries of cypress trees flanking them…”
