I want to follow the Shepherd

Many years and another life ago, my friend Pat and I walked over 350 of the 500 miles that make up el Camino de Santiago across northern Spain.

For those of you who haven't seen Martin Sheen's movie, The Way, el Camino de Santiago (in English, The Way of St. James) is a thousand-year-old walking pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where, tradition has it, lie the remains of Jesus’ Apostle St. James the Elder. 

One early morning before the misty fog had lifted, Pat and I headed west through the town where we had stayed the previous night, following el Camino’s trademark yellow arrows. 

In the outskirts of the village we passed an old cemetery, and instinctively began to say out loud together the Church’s traditional prayer for the dead: 

“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. 

And may perpetual light shine on them. 

May these souls and the souls of all the faithfully departed 

rest in peace. Amen.”

At the end of the cemetery grounds, we turned right and stood, literally, at the end of the town, facing a forest –and with no apparent yellow arrow or marker of any kind that we could follow. 

Pat and I stopped and looked at each other, and at the pebbled path, which split two ways in front of us. 

But before either of us could say anything, and seemingly out of nowhere, we spotted a man walking ahead of us and heading into the forest on one of the paths, and we followed him.

He was walking at our pace, dressed like the local shepherds, and was holding a wooden staff--but no backpack or bundle on his back, the trademark of every pilgrim.

We followed the shepherd in silence. I don’t remember for how long. Then suddenly, just as he had appeared when we needed help discerning which way to go, we looked up and he was no longer there.

But the yellow arrow painted on the tree marking for us the way was as clear and detectable as a blue cloudless sky.

Later that morning, as Pat and I commented how Providential it was that the shepherd appeared when we needed him most, we realized for the first time that each of us saw different things. Pat saw a young man dressed as a shepherd walking with a stick. I saw an older man dressed as a shepherd walking with a stick. 

Today's Gospel brought back memories of our Camino shepherd, and reminded me of my dear Pat, who faithfully followed the Good Shepherd all the days of her life, all the way into Eternal Life.

“Jesus said: 

My sheep hear my voice;

I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

No one can take them out of my hand." [Gospel of John, chapter 10].

I want to follow the Lord. 

I want to silently, without hesitation, follow the Shepherd wherever He goes, wherever He leads me.