The Jacobean Year continue to illuminate Santiago’s road after the Pope exceptionally extended it to 2022 due to Covid 19. And with the end of the pandemic, a large influx of pilgrims is expected during these months along the different paths to the tomb of the apostle located in the Compostela cathedral.
The one known as the French Way is precisely one of the busiest. Tens of thousands of pilgrims pass through this route, which in its Galician section begins in O Cebreiroa village located at an altitude of 1,300 meters between the O Courel and Os Ancares mountains, this being one of the hardest stages of the Camino.
There’s a strategic sanctuary guarded by the Franciscan friarswho work serving the small local community, but above all giving spiritual assistance to the many pilgrims who pass through there.
Precisely there it is Friar Francisco Castro Miramontespopularly known as Brother Pacoa benchmark on the Camino de Santiago, something that has sucked since he was born in Santiago de Compostela in 1971.
first from the San Francisco convent in Santiago and now from O Cebreiro has worked to promote the reception and the spiritual aspect of the Camino de Santiago, neglected for a time by the Church.
The Camino de Santiago is an opportunity for many to meet God or deepen their relationship with Him.
Degree in Law, Fray Paco began in his years at the university to dedicate his time to social and charitable tasks promoting a series of awareness campaigns through projects in favor of disadvantaged social sectors.
This social aspect led him to a spiritual search, which in the end ended up sustaining his life. It was like that decided to join the Franciscanswhere he now lives his religious vocation being inserted in the Camino de Santiago, another inseparable part of his existence.
For years he was rector-guardian of the imposing convent of San Francisco. There he created the Home of Spirituality San Francisco de Asís for the reception of pilgrims, “an open space for meeting and coexistence” for pilgrims from all over the world. “For me it means realizing that a dream has come true, since I felt the need to do something for the Camino in my hometown”, he recounted in a interview with him Galician Mail.
your life is full of anecdotes at the foot of the Camino, hence the importance of a ministry of presence, since God touches many hearts during the pilgrimage.
In a interview with the Franciscans of Santiago one of them recounted: “6 years ago a young German boy… I remember him physically very tall. This boy had a return plane ticket, I don’t know if it was two or three days after arriving in Santiago. Then he told us that he was very comfortable with us and if he could stay a few nights with us. I participated in the ceremony and wept. But there came a time when he cried so much that a hospitalera spoke to him. Then he said that he was going through a very hard time in his life because his father or mother had died, his partner had left him and he had also lost his job… all together! He fell apart and he didn’t know what to do. So he decided to do the Camino de Santiago. In Santiago he felt so welcomed that he wept with emotion, because he felt that he had lost his life’s direction, but that by meeting us, a family in Santiago, he could finally continue his life again. the. He returned to his country again with the aim of regaining strength and moving forward”.
In another interview he also spoke about the conversions on the Camino, which it is still “a metaphor for life itself”.
Every year thousands of pilgrims pass through O Cebreiro.
“I really like listening to the stories of the pilgrims, and it is easy for them to share their own inner experience with great freedom. In this sense, it is very important to practice listening, which is also a form of acceptance and, therefore, of love. I know of first-hand cases of conversion, without going any further in this same Sanctuary of Santa Maria, which not a few people tell us is a very special place, with a force of peace and love that some say they feel as soon as they enter this a place sanctified by so many centuries of history and so many pilgrims”, added the Franciscan friar.
He himself defines the sanctuary located at the foot of the path “like a hospital for the soul”something closely related to this historic route that since the Middle Ages was full of pilgrim hospitals.
“Here we celebrate what we call the Pilgrims’ Mass, which always ends with a special blessing for the pilgrims. It is not uncommon to contemplate tears at that moment. I remember that on one occasion a pilgrim approached me after Mass with tears in his eyes to tell me that he was an atheist, I simply smiled and hugged him. He had lived the moment of personal catharsis for him. Surely this was his time and place. Life is a succession of encounters. For that it is necessary to unfold the parabolic antenna of the soul; to feel beyond the superficial, to deepen the meaning of life, which, in my opinion, is profoundly spiritual”, added the friar.
Focused on his current mission in the Lugo village of O Cebreiro, Fray Francisco Castro joked: “before I was an urbanite and now I am a ruralite.” And he defines his mission: “Here, in O Cebreiro, I have become a lifeguard for pilgrims. And it’s not a metaphor. On more than one occasion I have had to go out to rescue a pilgrim trapped in the snow. I remember one who was already suffering from hypothermia; and also an injured girl.”
In other Interview with The Galician Post He recalled that “about fifteen people usually live in the village, but in spring and summer more than a hundred pilgrims spend the night. And my job is mainly to offer them a welcome”.
Each pilgrim is a face, a unique story: “they come from a very tough mountain stage and when they reach O Cebreiro they consider it a conquest; It is a great satisfaction for them”.
Three Franciscan friars await them there, who try to attend to all those who arrive as well as the churches of other localities. But they still consider it vital that the sanctuary is open as long as possible.more than twelve hours a day.
The friars are also responsible for informing pilgrims about issues related to the Jacobean Route and offering shelter to those who arrive without resources. “We pay for their stay in the municipal shelter and we give them food,” affirmed.
“I was always in love with the Camino de Santiago and here I am happy. I confess that at first it was a bit difficult for me to adapt to the environment, because I arrived in winter and with it full of snow, but now I am very happy”, confessed Fray Paco.
The Camino has always marked me and the attention of pilgrims in the convent of San Francisco was already part of my identity. That is why in O Cebreiro I feel very comfortable. Now I have a completely rural mentality. Contact with nature means that here the welcome for pilgrims is very different. The great road of Europe generates here a very peaceful climate of coexistence. I’m high on the mountain, very close to heavenand we also have some wonderful springs, so I have everything I need to survive”, concluded the Franciscan friar.
Fray Paco, the friar of the Camino de Santiago: «I have become a lifeguard for pilgrims»