5. To Larrasoana - With Alfred

5. To Larrasoana - With Alfred

November 2, 2011

Alfred walks across the floor with the poise of a dancer, a gymnast to his trampoline. At the end of the first day of the Camino we share the same small cubicle, along with two others, in Roncesvalles. He’s Brighton born but grew up in Scotland which he claims as his native place. He was to become my first companion on the Camino.

We had just been to Mass in the monastery chapel where I participated as a member of the congregation with the other pilgrims. Before holy communion one of the celebrating priests announced that communion is only for Catholics but that others could come for a blessing. My immediate reaction was to ask myself what it must be like for a non-catholic to be told this.

I got my answer from Alfred back in our cubicle where he was pacing. When I asked “how are you?” he blurted out his hurt and anger at the exclusion he had just experienced which he saw as an exercise of power on the part of the Church. I listened, let him rant. He apologised for loading this on me and kept talking. I said it was ok. He needed to say it.

When it came to dinner time I hoped I might sit with Alfred because he was the only one I knew but he was with some others and their table was full. Walking into a dining room full of strangers is a bit awkward. Where do I sit? 

I sat with three Italians, two women and a man named Mauro who had passed me earlier in the day when I was walking through the forest. It turned out that the women were driving his luggage from one place to another and they were covering a lot of ground. Lovely people.

There was bread and yougurt left over when we had finished eating and Mauro said I should take it with me for the day to come.

Next morning I headed off at about 7.30 leaving Alfred gathering his belongings which were spread around the floor. My expectation was that he would walk with Pierre with whom he arrived the previous evening. However Pierre and another pilgrim passed me by shortly after I had begun and Alfred was not with them.

It was a lovely morning after the rain of the day before. Along the way I was passed by a man who was running the Camino. He shouted “hello” to me and was the picture of freedom as he ran along dressed in the blue and yellow that I came to associate with the Camino. A lot of the signs were in these colours.

Hanz from Germany also passed me by when I had stopped to draw my breath. I was actually gasping and he so cool sauntering along. He’s been walking since August.

In the late morning I stopped for coffee at a bar in a little village. Smiling I asked the woman behind the counter for a cafe Americano. Her face remained impassive as stone while she got me my coffee and when I smiled and said “grazias” she did not smile. It’s Navarra and she might be Basque.

I sat outside and was soon joined by Alfred who was protesting against the set route that we had to follow, protesting against being seen as a tourist. And he insisted that the woman behind the bar had such a face on her because she’s fed up with pilgrim tourists.

For me the set external route liberates me to pay attention to the internal pilgrimage and I don’t have to worry much about finding my way. “The lot marked out for me is my delight...you will show me the path of life” (Psalm 16). But his rebellion against the route led him to places and experiences beneath the stars that remained unknown to me.

It began to rain so we covered up and moved on, spending the rest of the day together talking non stop.  He’s 27, very bright, sharp minded and a bit of a prophet in that he stands and thinks outside of the culture in which he finds himself. He questions everything. There is also a dynamic in him that seems to seek rejection even while he is seeking intimacy and this will always keep him on the edge and on the move - internally and externally.

We go back to the conversation of the previous evening about his exclusion from communion. It turns out that he is not baptized but he believes that Christianity has moulded his culture. He asks what communion IS. I explained its sacredness and that it is the Body and Blood of Jesus. There are times - including yesterday - when he feels drawn by Catholic liturgy and he even trembles in its presence. I said it’s the Holy Spirit drawing him, Love seducing him but he does not want to be seduced.

He questioned the right of the Church to go to other cultures and impose its religion. I said that from the Irish perspective there are a few important aspects to our missionary movement. The first is that we are not an imperial people and have never gone to impose ourselves on others in the way Britain, Spain, France etc have. There is also the fact that we have an impulse to go out of ourselves to other unknown places - like the monks of old getting into a boat not knowing where it would take them. The missionary movement is also best seen in the apostle Andrew after his first meeting with Jesus when he was so touched by the person of Jesus that he couldn’t contain himself and went running to tell his brother. Our mission is basically being so affected by Jesus that we cannot help but share it. Ultimately we go because Jesus has told us to. We got to the small village of Larrasoana at about 5.00 p.m. Alfred was for going on a further 10km but I had enough and he decided to stay as well. The municipal albergue was small, smelly and unattended, with just one other pilgrim - an older Frenchman with a long grey ponytail. There was something homely about the three of us being there together.

Finding food in the little place was a problem but we eventually found a shop tucked away in an obscure corner. A ham roll, coke and chocolate was my dinner. And lovely it was!

When we lay down to sleep in our bunks Alfred turned out the light and said to me “thank you for today.”  I close my eyes and listen to the song I want to die to - What A Friend I've Found by Delirious?

In the morning we had to be out of the hostel by 7. Alfred moved on alone, hoping to walk tracks that were not part of the set route. We were already that close from one day together that I felt lonely parting and I expected that we would not meet again. But we were to meet again and part a few more times!

Not wanting to walk in the dark I stopped under a street light on the bridge to pray to the sound of cockcrow, running water and the wind. Later in the morning I went into a field to say Mass under a tree because it seemed there was no guarantee of finding an open church.