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| Seminarians in Eucharistic Adoration in a small town in Spain |
Our efforts have been quite successful in this territory. People see the beauty in our fraternity, and are immediately attracted to us. They see that these men sing, pray, have pushup contests, and are still fun to share a drink with at the end of the day. People ask us questions and we happily answer them. People see us praying the breviary, and want to pray too, despite never having laid eyes on the book. One particular man, is a Reformed Lutheran, who despite his views, always feels inclined to find us if we are in the same town.
El Camino opens the Pilgrim to new and beautiful things, and for those we have encountered, it is the Roman Catholic Church and her seminarians. It is easy to see why this is, if we go back to my main purpose for hiking this trail: detachment. We all have our cellphones in airplane mode. The media cannot tell these people that religion is superstitious nonsense 24/7, as of right now. They cannot be told it is just a bunch dead garbage from ages past when four men, under the age of 25, stand by with a fire in their bellies, and a zeal for the Holy Spirit in their hearts.
Pray for these people that they may find God, and pray for the pastoral formation of all the seminarians throughout the world!
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| Thoughts and Reflections from Matthew W. Dimock, Jr. |
With that said, I would like to personally update you on our adventures from the seminarian point of view. After our departing from Fr. Roux, we made haste to our next stop, Hornillos del Camino, a small town in the middle of nowhere, Spain. From there we went to Castrojeriz. From there, last night, we met up with our clerical superior, who moved like a roadrunner to meet up with us. Tonight, we are in Itero de la Vega, a town formerly the home of the Knight's Templar (Deus Vult). That, in an extremely abbreviated fashion, is our big travel update.
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| Saint Joseph, pray for us! |
You see, many people (maybe even a majority of people) walk the way of St. James for non-pilgrimage reasons. For some, it has to do with sight-seeing, others just want exercise. Some are on the Camino because they have reached some sort of crossroads in their lives, and have to make an important decision, or come to peace with some baggage of their past. Some do it for "spiritual peace of mind" or to "find themselves, which are as arbitrary of reasons as they sound. Many, we have found are trying to grow closer to God, but know nothing about Him.
This gives us, as seminarians a very unique ability to evangelize to these people, just as the apostle did 2000 years ago. People here are searching for something, though they do not realize that He is searching for them. The answer is right in front of their faces in the beautiful Spanish churches, that pop up with every town.
