The Saint's Road

On the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry is an ancient Irish Pilgrim path called The Saint's Road or Cosan na Naomh in Irish. The Dingle Peninsula is an extraordinary place where the last vestiges of Western Europe clash with the vast expanse of the Atlantic in a final showdown of spray and rocky islands. There is an almost vertiginous feeling about the place; a heightened awareness of the turning of the Earth or the curve of the horizon.

The path meanders it's way across this rugged and breathtaking landscape making its way from sparkling sea to windswept mountaintop, along it's length dotted with Neolithic monuments, Early Irish Monastic sites and Medieval Romanesque Church remains.

Like the Camino, the path has pagan origins; in all probability the pre-Christian Irish worshipped the Celtic god Lugh on top of Mount Brandon which was also originally associated with another pagan deity Crom Dubh who Lugh would symbolically triumph over at the festival of Lughnasa - celebrated at the significant seasonal cross day half way between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox.

By the latter part of the 1st Millennium AD however St Brendan the Navigator had supposedly banished Crom Dubh from the mountain and Cosan na Naomh had become an important Irish pilgrimage. Pilgrims would arrive by sea either at Dingle Harbour or the beach at Ventry and then walk to the summit of Mount Brandon, stopping off at the various sites of spiritual significance along the way. In later centuries this evolved into a Roman Catholic festival or "Pattern" known locally as Crom Dubh Day, when pilgrims would walk from Cloghane to the summit of Mount Brandon on the last Sunday in July - the same day that pilgrims ascend another Irish pilgrim mountain, Croagh Patrick in Co.Mayo and very close to St James's Day on the 25th July.

Mount Brandon

In Natasha and Peter Murtagh's book Buen Camino! (see Additional Reading page) Peter Murtagh recounts how he climbed Croagh Patrick and then took a scallop shell (a traditional symbol of St James) from an eroded Mesolithic site on the shore of Clew Bay and tied it to his rucksack when he walked the Camino. I thought this had nice symbolism - taking something on the Camino from an early Irish pilgrim trail and since my American friend Eric Kruschke and I had walked the Saint's Road in 2009 and published a book on our experiences (again see additional reading), I felt it would be fun to take a scallop shell from Ventry strand on my next Camino walk in March.

When I started the Camino last September I bought a small purple scallop shell in St Jean Pied de Port. Its looking a bit chipped and battered after bouncing around on the outside of my rucksack, but I've got rather fond of it, so I will keep that on my rucksack, but my work colleague Patricia Morrisroe, who has a holiday home at Ventry has also given me another scallop shell from Ventry which I will also take it this time when I walk in March.

I love it's weather beaten appearance; encrusted with Barnacles and Serpulid worm tubes, I can imagine it lying in the shallow sandy water off Ventry amongst the kelp, its covering of algae gently waving in the shifting currents. I know its many centuries since pilgrims last splashed ashore at Ventry but the scallop shell seems an appropriate encrustation on my own rucksack!





Hyper-listening

Since I returned from my last trip on the Camino in September I have been musing about it’s role and significance in my life. This has had an increased importance as I prepare physically, psychologically and spiritually for the next section in March. What am I walking the Camino for? What am I getting out of it? What value does it have for me?

As a committed Bible-believing Christian it is certainly not for the traditional Catholic reasons; I know that I cannot earn points with God or have a portion of my sins wiped out by going on pilgrimage. Jesus makes it abundantly clear in the gospels that the “scandal” of the gospel is that all we have to do is surrender our lives to him and believe in faith that through his death and resurrection all the wrong things we have done in our life are forgiven and they will be – I know that peace and assurance in my own life and I know nothing I can do additional to what happened on the Cross will ever impress God. No, I just have to accept Jesus’ death as being everything I need to have right standing with God. So, given that, what value does walking the Camino have?

I think I got an answer recently as I watched a BBC TV programme called “Secrets of the Castle”. Three archaeologists Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold spent six months working at the largest archaeology experiment in the world; in the forests of Burgundy in France, archaeologists are painstakingly building a medieval castle, Chateau de Guedelon using 13^th Century techniques. The whole project will take about 25 years and the castle is half way through it’s construction!

I am always on the lookout for any references to the Camino on TV and in the final episode Ruth Goodman visited the Benedictine Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Vezelay in Northern Burgundy. The Cathedral was the starting point of the Chemin de Vezelay which ran 900km to join the Chemin de Paris and the Chemin de Puy at St Jean Pied De Port. Medieval pilgrims coming from Maastricht, Aachen, Namur and Auxerre all passed through the city.

Ruth Goodman examined the extraordinary Romanesque sculpture on the Tympanum and lintel above the main portal of the church with another historian, who pointed out the bizzarre figures in the far right corner of the lintel; they have enormous elephant – like ears! Although there is some debate concerning their meaning it is generally thought that the large ears refer to the opening lines of the 6^th Century Rule of St Benedict of Nursia which says

“Listen, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart”

The bible also says the same thing – for example in Proverbs 23:12, where it says:

“Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge”.

It is not enough to hear with our physical ears, we also need to listen spiritually to God with our hearts. For example, sometimes my wife says something to me while I am also watching TV or busy on the computer and I hear her, but I am not actually listening and couldn't tell you a word she said! So often in the busy-ness of our personal prayer times, where we bring our lists of things to God, or in the midst of our hectic busy church meetings, we claim to hear God speak, but aren't really listening.

In the New Testament, the original Greek uses a word to express this idea – Hupakouo which means to hyper-listen like a porter at a door, but it also carries with it the meaning of not just hearing a command but being responsive and being obedient to it. The porter had to not just hear his master when he knocked at the door but also open it to let him in. So, Jesus says in Revelation 3:20:

“I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me”

The main difference between Christian meditation and the Eastern forms so popular in Western Society nowadays is that apart from the fact that Christians fill their minds with God’s word, whereas in eastern mysticism the mind is emptied, the main aim of Christian Meditation is not for unity with an amoral cosmic consciousness, but so that we can hear God, (who loves us and longs to have relationship and intimacy with us) more clearly and then respond and obey what he says to us.

That for me personally, is the real purpose of the Camino; modern life is full of noise and it can be hard not only to hear God but listen to what he says. Taking time out of normal life to walk and experience solitude allows me to hyper-listen and hopefully let Jesus deeper and deeper into my heart.