Curt and Nancy Leiker, with webmaster Dave Leiker, set up this website so that family and fellow parishioners at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Flush, Kansas can follow our progress on this arduous journey. This walk on the Way of Saint James will take us through very many small villages in the Spanish countryside. And, provide us with many opportunities to interact with the Spanish people during this trek. In some ways we will live with them over a period of two to three months.
This is a pilgrimage for us. Some say that James the Greater had no opportunity to travel to and evangelize this land before being put to death in Jerusalem. Well, someone did since there has never been a more predominantly Catholic people than Spaniards. So then we prefer to believe the tales and legends that tell a different story. St. James did come here. He evangelized many areas under Roman rule. He spent 40 years in Spain. His bones lie at Compostela in the Cathedral of Santiago having been moved from Jerusalem by his Spanish followers on news of his death.
We will walk, as he did, through northern Spain. Walk much as he did with only what he could carry, though we have several advantages he didn’t. Namely a well planned and maintained path to handle a quarter million pilgrims (peregrinos) each year, hostels (albergues) at every village, and an international Visa card. Picture a smiley face here. We may want to suffer somewhat as the apostles did but we’re not stupid. Too much.
Nevertheless this is a pilgrimage intended to educate us in our faith and through many days of prayerful solitude and contemplation make us better fitted to live as Jesus asks us to. The walk is about 796 km (around 500 mi.) from St. Jean Pied De Port in France to Santiago De Compostela in Spain. More depending on the number and ambitiousness of side excursions. Mass is available every day somewhere along the path often timed to accommodate pilgrims following the days hike. The journey ends at Cathedral De Santiago, the last 30 feet, we think on your knees, to touch the statue of Saint James; or Saint Iago (ee ah go) as he is known there. Then if you stick around awhile you may get to witness the monks use thick ropes and a ceiling anchor to swing the giant incensor over the heads of participants at the mass.
Prayer to St. James the Greater
O glorious Apostle,
St. James, who by reason of thy fervent and generous heart
was chosen by Jesus to be a witness of His glory on Mount Tabor,
and of His agony in Gethsemane;
thou, whose very name is a symbol of warfare and victory:
obtain for us strength and consolation in the unending warfare of this life,
that, having constantly and generously followed Jesus,
we may be victors in the strife and deserve to receive the victor’s crown in heaven.
Amen.