St James Day

We limped out of Astorga slightly refreshed after a day's rest. Today would be special - it was St. James Day. Unbeknownst to most St. James the Apostel and Santiago refer to the same person. For some reason, Diego is the Spanish version of James and Santiago is some variation of Saint Diego. The walk was pleasant but unremarkable other than a side-trip to the cute little town, Castrillo de Los Polvazares, that was completely locked down despite being a well-known tourist destination.

But we had high hopes for our destination of Rabanal Del Camino. A town with Camino in it's name. Certainly they would have something special planned for our day.

The story of St. James has many variations but it goes something like this. James Zebedee or James the Greater (there were two apostles named James) left the Middle East to spread the word as instructed by Jesus. His time in Spain was cut short by a vision of the Virgin Mary telling him to return to Jerusalem. Upon his return, he was martyred. (There is some moral here about listening to visions of the Virgin Mary). His body was then put into a boat and at some point arrived near the northwest corner of Spain. The body eventually travelled a hundred miles inland.

Santiago

Around 900 A.D., a farmer found some bones in a field illuminated by a bunch of bright stars. The Catholic hierarchy use their post dark ages CSI skills to verify the authenticity of the bones. A church grew up around the bones, a pilgrimage route to see the holy relics flourished, and the rest is, both figuratively and literally, history. The full name of the city containing the church is Santiago de Campostela which means Saint James of the Field of Stars.

Back to our destination... We immediately stumbled upon a sweet but crumbling church that was having a special lunchtime Mass with five Benedictine priests presiding and a cute little old man playing a fife and a drum. Later in the evening, there was vespers - vespers is usually when nuns or monks sing for about 30 minutes. Tonight, the vespers centered around Santiago (who I would later learned is called Jacob in German). The same five priests led the singing with the rest of us stumbling along in Latin (nunc et sempre means now and forever - we sang that along). Most of the priests spoke English (and German, as I would also later learn) and they would occasionally address the group in English. Father Jeremiah spoke first in Spanish about the legend of Santiago and the Stone Cow that had brought him to Spain. Or so I thought. He said "Barca" which means Boat and not "Vaca" which means Cow - those Spanish speakers out there may forgive the mistake as they DO sound somewhat similar. His English translation resolved my puzzlement.

After the service, there was a small party put on by the priests where we were able to talk to Father Jeremiah a bit. He and two others were on "Home Leave" and just visiting. He had help start the Monastery in Rabanal some 15 years ago as well as revived the practice of having a celebration on July 25th. We could have been many places on this day, but we felt we had landed in a special place.

Tomorrow, to the highest point on the Camino!