From the Pastor’s desk— June 8, 2025

Dear Parishioners,

I’m leaving soon for a few weeks. I am going on a pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago (The path of St. James). Friday, June 13 I will drive to Cape Girardeau to fly the next day and I will return to Sacred Heart for mass July 5. Pilgrimages are challenging adventures. Something usually goes wrong or unexpected. Thankfully, I’m travelling with a doctor, two nurses, and two experienced hikers! Fr. Andrew Williams will be with me, together with his parents and two friends of theirs. I will be sorry not to be here at Sacred Heart for those three weeks, but I will be praying for you and for our seminarians the whole way. We will be walking anywhere from 10 to 20 miles each day, most of those between 13-16 miles. I’m sure I’ll have lots of stories to tell when I get back!

The Camino de Santiago is one of the great pilgrimages of Christendom. At its destination, Santiago de Compostella, rests the bones of St James the son of Zebedee, apostle and brother of St John the Evangelist. When the pilgrimage began in the 9^th C., this coastal region called Galicia was considered the edge of the western world, looking out over the sea. Columbus wouldn’t sail to the New World for another six centuries. At that time, it was also an outpost of Christian faith on the peninsula we call Spain. Islam had appeared in the world in the 8^th C. and in just a hundred years had expanded by force across all northern Africa and up in into the Spanish peninsula. The Christian communities were pushed back into hiding the mountains of the northern coast.

It is thanks to St. James that Christian faith was able to spread once more across Spain. Pilgrims would travel from all over Europe to visit the relics of St James, bringing with them their money and culture. They had to pay for food and lodging! This culture strengthened the Christian people. They even had hotels run by monks trained as knights both to welcome pilgrims and defend the borders! The money helped expand the war effort to reclaim the territory. It took six centuries, little by little but by 1492 when Columbus was sailing, christians governed all of the peninsula again.

Please place petitions, you would like me to carry with me on pilgrimage, in the white box at the entrance to church.

Fr. Joseph