To the End of the World and Back Again

Today we went to Finesterre- where Julius Cesear saw the sunset over the water and claimed that this must be the end of the world, that the sun may never rise again and where ancient romans visited and prayed to the goddess Athena (maybe, maybe not I couldn’t’ quite understand all that our guide, Joaxin, was saying). We didn’t pray to Athena but we did look towards home and think about all of you whom we left behind.

It took us 5 hours to get to Finesterre, but we stopped in 3 villages and at the beach on the way. It was a fun day. Each town had its own church that we visited, one was converted into a museum for gravestones, another was a beautiful gothic, while another was a beautiful Romanesque structure. It was almost like a mini-pilgrimage with in a pilgrimage. We had evening prayer at the church on the way back into the world (The Parish of St Mary in the Village of Finisterre)- this was lead by Lucy and Richard who had the wonderful idea to do it there rather than on the bus.

The theme of the day has been resurrection- we read the story of Elijah resurrecting the widow’s son, and Jesus resurrecting Jairus daughter today during morning prayer. I couldn’t help but think of being reborn as we crawled under the “special kidney rock” today at the Church of the Lady of the Boats (at the point of death one of the deadliest coasts in the world for ships to pass through) where St James supposedly saw the Virgin Mary aboard a boat while he cried about the pagans in Galicia.

We learned a lot about the area of Spain where we are today- like that its very rainy (despite us having no rain yet KEEP ON PRAYING FOR FANTASTIC WEATHER!!), and that is has more in common with Ireland and Scotland than the southern part of Spain. We also learned that we will just be missing the biggest party of the year the feast of St John – on June 23, there are big bonfires to celebrate the beginning of the summer season here.

(We also learned of a tradition which you should make sure the young adults don’t try at home, that in order to keep safe from witches people jump over the coals of the bonfires 3 times, once for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit, to keep you safe from witches.- so if you get something with a witch on it as a gift, your child, friend isn’t giving you a hint, just sharing part of the culture of Galacia with you).

On the way home everyone but Shane fell asleep, we had a nice siesta, and now we are going off to get some tapas for dinner. While our lunch was huge and very nice local flavor, some of us didn’t like much of it. We had Empenadas de Pisces, Totilla de Espana, Muscles, a beautiful white fish with potatoes and salad, followed by Apple cake. Even Father Cal and Kim ate the fish, some wouldn’t even tried it and ate

lots of bread and potatoes.

Tonight we hope to get a good night’s sleep, last night some of us had noisy neighbors, and the early morning wake up call came at about 7:00 am.

Hasta manana- tu pelegrinos

Until tomorrow – your pilgrims

PS - If you can tell me what you see in this picture I will give you a kiss.