A Pilgrimage Opportunity
Join Dixie on the Camino in 2025, or send someone you love
Dear Guildmembers and Friends,
I (Dixie) hope you don’t mind my sharing something really special that may be of interest.
I have some great news to share: I’ve been invited to co-lead a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago with my friends and this coming June 14-24!
Walking together in prayer, in physical effort, in community, and toward a holy goal — it’s liturgical living in motion. I am so delighted to have this wonderful opportunity, which I see as an invitation to grow deeper in faith and in connection with place, people, and God.
What about you?
Could you come with us?
Read on below to have your questions answered.
Where will we go?
The itinerary for this pilgrimage, arranged by Select International, begins with a couple of days of orientation and touring before the walk begins. We’ll then ease into our walk with some short days and then finish with some longer stretches as we get deeper into our pilgrimage. Our arrangements for the walk will combine security (van support in case of trouble walking, reserved rooms each night, relief from the stress of managing logistics, etc.) with community and spiritual practice as we walk 100 km of the Camino, the section known as the Camino Frances.
Take a look below at the schedule:
What is special about our group?
You may know me best from my faith-centered writing, but as you may also know, Ruth and Peco and I each often write about rebuilding personal presence and humane social bonds in our fragmented, tech-incautious society (you can learn more about my writings outside of Signs + Seasons at my other substack, The Hollow, or at Hearth & Field).
What better way to do this than by walking, conversing, eating, and praying together on pilgrimage? As Ruth notes, this trip is not just for extroverts — walking together as pilgrims can be a deeply spiritual version of the concept of parallel work (or play), in which we experience something together but also privately.
How will we each grow personally in connection with God in these 11 days? And how will we grow together, as well?
With this tour, we also have the opportunity to invest in traveling this road together as brothers and sisters across denominational lines. Ruth, Peco, and I are Christians from three different faith tradition backgrounds; as a Roman Catholic, I see traveling and praying together on this centuries-old pilgrimage in part as a way for us to strengthen bonds between Christians so that iron may sharpen iron. And if you do not follow a particular tradition but are simply seeking, you are welcome here, too! Let’s walk this road together toward the great cathedral.
(A note for my fellow Catholics: although we will not have a priest among the leaders, there will be frequent opportunities to attend Mass.)
You can download the full brochure below. Please note that I have not yet been added to the brochure (in place of the gentleman currently listed as co-leader, who unfortunately is not able to join us) — don’t worry, it’s the right one! Just waiting on their marketing team to update, and didn’t want you to have to wait to learn about the trip!
Is it affordable?
We all know that European tours, even pilgrimages, are dependent on an aligning of stars in terms of time, treasure, and availability for individual travelers. I hope some of you may see those lining up so that you may come on this great adventure with us.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many of us, which is the reason that I myself am grabbing this bull by the horns. There are some reasons I can think of not to go, myself — stress, money, responsibilities. There always are. But I feel invited by God to get out of my own way this particular time, for he has made the path available. Sometimes things open up in a way we could not before have imagined.
How about you?
Have you experienced major life changes in recent years and need a spiritual deepening or reset?
Is your anniversary coming up? Could you do this with your spouse?
Or what about giving this as a gift (perhaps a few relatives could pitch in on the cost) to a young person you know, someone graduating college this May or about to get married?
Might you invest in this as a parent-child trip for you and your high schooler or high school graduate?
Or how about giving this as a spiritually-nourishing Christmas gift?
This could be a life-changing opportunity if it is within your means to give it to yourself or someone you love.
I hope you will join us! Click below to learn more and to register (again, they’ll update this with my name soon):
Please feel free to message me if you have any questions!
For those who cannot join us, I will be collecting prayer intentions in late spring to take along with me when the time comes. I hope you will entrust me with yours at that time!
Warmly,
You might want to read this article I wrote about the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James. The tomb of St. James the Great in Compostela is the destination and reason that so many have been traipsing the Camino de Santiago for so many years. The traditional belief is that St. James evangelized Spain, that he returned to Jerusalem and later died as the first martyr among the Apostles, and that his body was brought back to Compostela for burial.
The article also is a review of a very good book by a priest who walked the Camino on a sabbatical, "One Thing a Contemporary Good Priest Has in Common with the Wife of Bath
Review of Discovering the Camino de Santiago by Rev. Greg Markey"
https://roseannetsullivan.substack.com/p/one-thing-a-contemporary-good-priest?utm_source=publication-search
My husband and I signed up awhile ago, and I’m excited that you will be part of the team. Looking forward to it!