First and foremost, our arrival in Spain coincided with the Catholic feast day of St James the Greater, none other than Santiago himself!!!!. Yes, Saturday, July 25 was our arrival and his feast day.
And then, to boot, tomorrow, July 31, is the feast day of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit's and a Spanish born saint!!!.
So two themes from these two items stand out for me this day-- and go together well to express what I was thinking of today, and chatting with Matt about a little-
"Ad maiorem Dei gloriam", for God's Greater Glory, theme by which the Jesuit's with St Ignatius were founded on.
And then I read the gospel reading from the mass for the day of St. James--- from Matthew 20:20-28, but I'm cutting it short to capture the point-
From Matthew-
" But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
So there in a nutshell is a philosophical approach to life that in my experience makes all the difference in the world whether you are spiritual or not--
To serve is a greater calling than being served, and to approach life knowing their is a higher power that is greater than you, that if one can weave these two themes into their daily camino, their path, then it is hard to imagine going far off course.
--
As a currently employed professional I find it especially important at this stage of our economic development that leaders are aware of and have respect for these themes.
Not to be the biggest, but to serve an important role-as big as one can!!using the gifts God has given us to serve.
To win providing that service, but not at the expense of the whole world for one's own profit, for to forget the Greater Glory is to assure one's own destined destruction.
And my, haven't we seen enough of that over the last year or two.
So matt and I had a chat about all that.
Then, a little while later on our walk I asked matt-
"What are you thinking about"?
Not that I could predict the answer? But a few thoughts sprung to mind--!!!
World peace? Nah!!
Praying for the world?? Nope!!
What I want to be when I grow up? Nada!!
Matt had the perfect answer for the day--
He said "about how great Bruce is going to be in Santiago on Sunday"!
I thought that was a good and righteous answer!!!! And then I thought how great its going to be too!!!
It's been great walking with Matt, sharing a little expounded philosophy (mine, the Jesuit's, the Gospel of St. Matthew), but its also been great just walking.
It's that simple, yet it takes a long time to walk what would take a car ride a mere 30 mins/hour. We covered about 15 miles walking, and we covered other stuff too.
So we stolled into Portomarin at 6pm today after 8 leisurely hours on the trail today, me wanting to get all this down so I can remember it and matt wanting to arrive at the albergue he's selected for the evening (his choice tonight). The weather is spectacular, by the way.
And so is the company.
From Portomarin, at the albergue Mirador,
Tt
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
No comments:
Post a Comment