Sunday Morning in Santiago

Sunday Morning Summation

And so it was Easter Sunday, I had followed Holy Week from Palm Sunday in Burgos to the Resurrection in the square outside The Cathedral of Santiago. I had had so much fun following and recording the efforts of the local people to contextualise the moments that led to the foundation of Christianity. The new and eternal covenant between man and God. They do this with dramatic imagery and strong actions. Walking masked and barefoot through the streets, carrying enormous statues which show scenes up from the last days before and after the crucifixion (note: I am feeling a little guilty as I am sitting at a café drinking coffee as I write and I can see into and hear Mass going on in the Jesuit church on the other side of the square). I have already been to Mass. Following the procession of the Resurrection from the great Franciscan church towards the Cathedral I, for the first time in the process, became emotional, my bizarre Camino was having an effect on me. I had enjoyed almost every minute of the trip-15 minutes in Valladolid are probably the exception, but on Good Friday evening and suddenly on Sunday morning I arrived at a feeling that was more than enjoying an alien cultural experience. I was part of the event, I was a participant I was involved and part of me will always recognise Santiago as a part of my Easter, wherever I am celebrating the feast. Just as Jerusalem and the New Fire Ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is part of my Easter and being in St Peter’s Square at Pope John Paul II’s last Easter Mass, all these memories now have a new and enduringly strong companion. As I write a large English-language tour group passes, they are just seeing the buildings and hearing about the history they, unlike me and those thousands of real pilgrims are not part of the spiritual Experience, that we now own.

Some big churches are strangely soulless especially when awash with tourists, such is the Cathedral of Santiago. It might be that it is because it’s under restoration but I have had the same feeling in Notre Dame which had much of the atmosphere of a Victorian railway station, a bit smokier now! The Franciscan and Jesuit churches appeal so much more, they are to use the Italian word, simpatico (sympathetic) and church like. Both are big but different. People visit St James to “ hug the statue” and hope for luck. But in the real churches with real people as well as tourists it is like being a part of the community of the people of God. It is a joy now to go to Mass with people standing as there are no seats. 50 or 60 years ago this was normal, but now, so rare.

So I had reached the conclusion of my pilgrimage and I actually feel like a pilgrim. I have stood in front of the reliquary that holds (allegedly) the bones of St James, which fro a simple logical point of view it is nonsense. He died in 44 A.D., he disappeared, and 400 years later the bones were identified and moved to north-west Spain. But that it is clearly not true is now of no relevance. The bones have been here 1600 years and are made Holy, not by being real but by the faith of the countless numbers of pilgrims who have used the life, work and death of James the Apostle to inspire their own faith in Jesus and his message of salvation.

Now I must drink coffee and eat a fine gourmet dinner and make my way home as safely as I can. Then I need to put my photos and films in order and bore all my friends with what I have to tell them.