On a wet April morning, 21 pilgrims met up at Heathrow’s Terminal 2 for our flight to Madrid and the start of our 7-day journey to Santiago and the shrine of St James the Apostle.

Some participants had joined our Group from other parts of the country (including a nun from the Roman Catholic Order of the Sisters of Mercy).
Our pilgrimage covered five world heritage sites – Segovia, Avila, Burgos Cathedral, Santiago, and the pilgrimage route itself, and during the course of the week, we learnt about five saints – James the Apostle, Teresa of Avila, Peter of Alcantara, John of the Cross, and Isidore of Seville (whose feast day coincided with our attendance at the pilgrim mass in Santiago Cathedral, and where we saw the famous immense censor, the Botafumeiro, swung by eight men over our heads and almost to the ceiling). We held our own Eucharists in Burgos and Leon Cathedrals, and said Night Prayer at the start and close of the week in our hotels, before we had dinner.

Thanks to our tour operator, excellent travel escort and good weather our pilgrimage provided a superb opportunity to experience some of the rich spirituality of Spain, through people, places, pictures, history, and worship. We encountered the generous hospitality along the Camino de Santiago, in which groups of pilgrims from far and wide are welcomed to services, and invited to hold Mass in their own language in churches and cathedrals along the Way.

So our first pilgrimage venture into continental Europe certainly uplifted jaded spirits, fed our faith, and enlarged our circle of friends, as we joined in a tradition which Christians have shared down through the ages. We returned to our home parishes feeling privileged that we had participated in something “very special”.

Revd Frank Lehaney
Curate, Brockham and Leigh Parishes