Star that was given to us by the Sisters of St Augustine
at their albergue (hostel for pilgrims) in the town of
Carrion de los Condes in the province of Palencia in
northern Spain.
Today’s readings about the love we have in our relationship with Christ really give us a lot to think about. God is love itself – that is a message that is reiterated again and again in God’s holy word in Sacred Scripture. And Jesus explains to us today that the love that the Father and the Son have for each other is a love that is passed on to us in our relationship with Jesus. Jesus tells us about the love of God that is passed on to us so that the joy we have in our hearts becomes evermore joyful. Wow – it sort of takes a while for us to wrap our minds around that, doesn’t it.
I told you about the pilgrimage to Spain in my homily last week. One of the last days on that pilgrimage trail, we spent the night at a pilgrims’ hostel that is one of the oldest still operating on the pilgrimage route to Santiago. It is located on the banks of a beautiful river in the small village of Ribadiso, which is only about 25 miles from the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where St James is buried. It is right on the banks of beautiful river where the pilgrims cross a bridge that was built in the medieval period. Pilgrims have been staying in this albergue for more than 500 years. When I walked the pilgrimage trail, the same trail that the pilgrims have walked for more than 1,000 years, I felt such a connection to them. I can only imagine the love and the faith that motivated them to make such a journey. The journey was difficult enough and challenging enough for me, with a place to stay each night, with a credit card and an ATM card where I could withdraw money, with a fancy backpack and a Gortex jacket and sturdy hiking shoes. Imagine walking in the Middle Ages where you just had sandals and a walking staff, where you had no money and often just had old pieces of stale bread to eat, where you had to walk mostly at night out of fear of the robbers who would come out of nowhere and prey on the pilgrims. That is love. That is the love that Christ is talking about. And yet the pilgrims took great joy in what they were doing. They felt so connected to the love that Christ was talking about in today’s Gospel.
In last week’s homily, I told you about staying overnight at a hostel run by three Augustine nuns in the same town of Carrion de los Condes. At the prayer service they had for us in the evening, they presented all of us with some multi-colored paper stars for us to take with us on our journey. And they told us that they wanted to see these stars symbolizing three things for us. First of all, they represent the light of Christ, a light that is passed on to us and that shines in all of our lives as his followers, a light that connects us to the divine in our lives, a light that points us to God, that points us in the right direction. Secondly, they represent strength, a strength that we get from our relationship with God, a strength that all of the pilgrims need to get through the blisters and bad weather and the fatigue that we feel when things get tough and rocky. Lastly, these stars represent hope, a hope that we can only find in Jesus. Light, strength, and hope: isn’t that what the love of Christ is all about as well?
A man named Felix from the Canary Islands came up to me after that prayer service we had with the sisters. He is the one who has done the pilgrimage seven times now, from the beginning stages in the Pyrenees mountains at the border with France to the city of Santiago almost 500 miles away. He opened up his prayer book, and he showed me 7 different stars that he had collected from the time he stayed with the sisters each year. He proudly showed me photos from the times he had stayed with them as well over the years. And he told me that he did not put at date on any of the stars because the light of Christ, the love of Christ knows know date since it lasts forever and since it does not know the boundaries of space and time. So simple, yet so profound.
The pilgrims find this love of Christ along the pilgrimage route, in the walking each day they undertake on their way to Santiago. They see the love of Christ in the relationships they make alone the way, in the ways they see Christ in this journey. Where are we finding the love of Christ in our daily lives? How do we see this love interacting in our lives? How do we pass this love on to others?
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