Santiago de Compostela

We had an unbelievably special pilgrim mass at noon today at the Cathedral. We were in the Cathedral before 11 am as I had wanted to complete a few of the pilgrim rituals before mass but the place was so crowded that we decided to just grab a seat in one of the first few pews and wait for mass to start at noon. It was wonderful to sit there and enjoy the church and the greeting and congratulating among perigrinos. I had all of my various mementos with me for this special mass and had time to say a rosary while we waited. Then a nun came out and tried to train the attendees as to how the songs were going to be sung. When mass started 3 priests came in and the organ started playing just above us and everyone singing - gave me goose bumps. One of the priests announced the the number and nationality of the perigrinos who had arrived in Santiago and received their Compostelas yesterday. We heard him say ¨dos perigrinos estatus unidos¨ which we believe was us.

The ritual for perigrinos over the centuries is to enter the cathedral up the steps to the elaborately sculptured doorway called the Portico de la Gloria (Door of Glory). Pilgrims used to place their hands on the Tree of Jesse, the center column under the statue of St. James. As so many hands have touched the stone pillar it has worn down and now there is a barrier so you can not reach it. The point of this symbolic touch was to reaffirm your belief in the Christian faith. The whole door way was covered with scaffolding and plastic so we had a hard time deciphering the biblical stories depicted but St. James was uncovered and very easy to see clearly.

The next ritual is to embrace the statue of St. James that presides at the main alter, this being the manifestation of your commitment to visit the tomb of St. James through walking the Camino and also to be more open to the Christian message he brought us. You climb up a small narrow passage and are behind the alter and from directly behind the statue you touch the statue and then go down the stairs on the other side.

Near that exit area is another small set of stairs down to the crypt under the alter where St. James relics lie in a silver urn, along with relics of two of his followers.

We had noted that during mass perigrinos could continue their embrace of the statue and also visiting the crypt so we decided that after receiving communion we would go and do the rest of the perigrino rituals. So we did these last two steps with the organ playing and everyone singing. We exited from the crypt just at the front where now the incense burner,the botafumeiro, was being lowered so it could be lit and swung sending the smell of incense through out the church. It took six men to hold the ropes and did they send that incense burner soaring up, swinging over both naves on the sides of the main alter. We had heard that since Saturday the incense device had been broken, so we were not sure if we would be fortunate enough to see this ritual performed. In the old days it was thought to help cleanse the dirty and disease ridden perigrinos. Question: Will the smoke kill bed bugs?

We did not see the rest of the cathedral nor light any candles today, so we will come back again for the perigrino mass tomorrow, but will let others have a seat up front.

It has rained off and on today so when the sun is out we take pictures and otherwise are in our rain gear. The information office told us where there was a laundromat so we have taken all the clothes we can there to be cleaned and are now at an internet cafe doing today and yesterday´s blog as we got behind.

Santiago´s old quarters are really lovely and as it rains so much here, the old streets have little porticos so people still sit outside to people watch. There is a real upscale cafe bar that we hung out in yesterday with other perigrinos and we will go back there after the laundry is done and before we meet our Canadian friends who should have walked in today. Our hotel is the Convento de San Francisco which is near the Cathedral and has some character. We booked it online for a rate of 107 euros per night and we have the room until the morning of Oct 9th when we get our rental car. Santiago has a university with it´s campus right in the old town so of course in addition to all the perigrino activity you have all the students as well, so there is an active tapas bar street Rua Franco that we visited for dinner last night. We will enjoy that area more over the next few nights as we get more energy. We both bought big thick paperback novels at the book store and plan to put our feet up at the various cafes and just read and watch the world go bye.