As Fr Ferran had been telling us for days, today we entered a hard phase of the pilgrimage. A series of long stages is coming up (today’s, 38 km) and we are moving away from the coast, so the happy beach days are over. But, holding tight to God’s hand, off we go!
Today on the way we had a bit of everything. The stretches of road were full of roundabouts, so our sherpas positioned themselves strategically to stop the traffic from several directions. In situations like that, you really feel you own the road. There were also dirt tracks, with farms and houses on both sides, from which dogs would suddenly start barking and scare us to death. At one point we passed a kind of residential complex called “Campo Aníbal”, which we, with all the tiredness we’re carrying, read as “Campo Caníbal”. Very tempting, to be honest.
Despite the difficulty of the stage, we all reached the end in great shape. In the afternoon we had to celebrate Holy Mass in the street, in front of the sports hall where we’ll sleep, because they couldn’t open the church for us. It was quite a challenge to live it well, with lots of people passing by and a friendly neighbour who took it upon himself to play reggaeton at full volume from his balcony. Clearly the devil is furious about everything God is doing in our souls these days, and wants to put obstacles in our way so that we don’t draw close to the Lord. Well, he’ll have to put up with it, because we will sing louder, hold on to the cross and keep going!
Fr Bernat preached to us today about sin. He encouraged us not to be stingy or to measure our actions along the lines of “this is only a venial sin”, “I can go this far”, “I’m not crossing the line”. In relationships of love and friendship, you don’t try to stay within limits, but to give everything, to make the other person happy, to go overboard with affection. That’s why we will fight sin with all our strength, radically, because we don’t want anything, however small, to separate us from the Lord.
A funny anecdote: in the middle of lunch, we started hearing the Town Council’s announcements over a loudspeaker. For us, city dwellers for the most part, it was hilarious to witness this village phenomenon. They told us which chemist’s is on duty today, the date of a charity dinner, a vigil and a call for vocational training grants. What’s more, the voice spoke with the (for us) curious Valencian accent, and it sounded more or less like this: “Us informa l’Achuntament de Riba-rocha del Túria”.
In the evening we had a bit of a get-together and played a story-making game whose victims were Kyril and Fr Bernat. After a good laugh, we prayed Compline and went to bed. Tomorrow we’ll have a shorter stage and we’ll tell you more.
Good night, dearest parents!