Camino de Santiago Day Eleven

Grañón to Tosantos 

Hey, we are still in beautiful landscape and agriculture at the western edge of La Rioja.

“You don’t have a choice.”

Enjoying a long morning concert of Joshua Tree and  “You’re the Best Thing About Me,” “Love is All We Have Left” and “Ordinary Love” by U2.

Threatening clouds just a mile before our destination at Tosantos.

 The ceiling of the parroquial hostel—200 years old?

Chapel set up by Santiago, our hospitalero.
Santiago is host, cook, blister consultant and pastor of everyone who comes.  He orchestrated 16 of us making lentel soup with chorizo and mixed salad. 

His dinner blessing: I want to thank you all for coming to eat and sleep here. I want to thank the pilgrims who came before you. And I want to thank God for guiding all of us on our Camino. Amen.

The fee for the hostel is by donation—whatever we give will provide for tomorrow’s pilgrims.

Everyone is invited to the prayer time after dinner. He told us: What unites us is the love of God that guides us and helps us along the Camino. What we do on the Camino doesn’t happen anywhere else—strangers walking together from all over the world with the same goal of the Camino. So that we are not confused, the love of God is not the same as friendship or energy. And so we pray together tonight to remember and give thanks for God’s love through Jesus Christ. Each language was represented in the readings and prayers—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian and English. Santiago passed out prayer requests written by previous pilgrims in the last three weeks—the rest of their journey from Tosantos to Santiago de Compostela. We read the prayers in the languages they were written and said amen after each one. Very moving to pray for pilgrims who came before us.