Fr. Leonard Altilia, S.J. is tDirector, Projet Nouveau Gesù.
19 posts
As I write this, I am sitting in the President's Office of St. Paul's High School in Winnipeg, MB, at the very imposing presidential desk. I've been in the office for about a week, trying to get a handle on the dimensions of my new job, attending to the practicalities of establishing myself in a new setting, and meeting as many of my new co-workers (faculty, staff, board members, etc.) as I can before school officially starts after Labour Day....
Hecho polvo is a wonderful Spanish colloquialism which translates as "exhausted", but literally means "turned to dust". I arrived here in Santiago on June 27, hecho polvo. But the exhilaration, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment which accompanied the arrival quickly overwhelmed the exhaustion. In the square in front of the Cathedral of Santiago, there was a spontaneous outburst of joy and excitement from myself and my walking companion Carlos, with whom I shared the last five days of the Camino. We embraced, we shouted with delight, we took each other's picture in front of the Cathedral and got someone to take pictures of both of us together....
I have now been on the Camino for three full weeks, and have covered over 400 km, with about 150 to go. That should take me no more than 6 days to complete. The end is near....
Today is Day 14 of my time on the Camino. It started in Burgos and ended in León, a distance of approximately 200 km. No, I didn't suddenly sprout wings or tele-transport or any other such thing. I simply took a bus. By Day 12, when I arrived in Burgos, I had walked 255 km. But that was much less than I had anticipated completing by that time. If I had any hope of completing the Camino in Santiago, I had to make a choice....
And on the seventh day God rested, evening and morning of the seventh day. It is my seventh day and I am resting. Good enough for God: good enough for me! I have walked 137 km in 6 days, not quite the pace I was hoping for, but good enough. It's the hills that slow me down; some are so steep that I am reduced to a crawl....
May 26. One year ago, to the day, I began my remote preparations for walking the Camino de Santiago. Now, after a couple of thousand kilometres of walking, several hundred hours of exercising in the gym, careful gathering of materials, clothing, and equipment, it's time to go. On May 30, I will go to Madrid, then on to Roncesvalles the next day, to begin the walk on Saturday, June 1....
The day we get a Jesuit Pope, hell will freeze over! So it has been said, perhaps even by me. Well, it must be awfully chilly in the netherworld today because we do indeed have a Jesuit Pope. Francis I, S.J. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? It's a good thing that I'm not a gambler, because I would waste a whole lot of money. I was so far off on this one. I didn't expect a new pope before Friday. And I was sure, when the decision came so quickly, that it would be someone from inside the Vatican. In fact, I was betting on Cardinal Scola as we raced to the Vatican for the announcement....
I don't get up at 5:30 am very often. It takes something special to get me out of bed that early in the morning. But on the morning of Wednesday, February 27, I was up and out of bed and out the door before 6:10 because something very special indeed was happening that morning. Pope Benedict XVI was to give his final public audience before retiring from his duties as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. It was an historic day, and a rare opportunity. I wasn't about to miss it....
On Monday, February 11, I walked into the house chapel for community prayer a little before 1:00 pm Rome time. One of my colleagues leaned over to me and asked if I had heard the news that the Pope had announced his resignation. Given this fellow's reputation for jokes, I was sure he was just pulling my leg. But almost immediately I realized that he was quite serious and that in fact the Pope had just resigned....
At the age of 65, after 48 years in the Jesuits, for the first time in my life I have nothing to do. Or, to put it more correctly, there is nothing I have to do. Being on sabbatical for a full year (August through July), I am experiencing for the first time in my life since childhood the almost complete absence of obligation. No required activities, no expectations, no formal duties, nothing!...
