“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and The Pilgrimage
The Call of the Camino
Today I leave for what I hope will be a successful 40-day pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago, often referred to as the Way of St. James, in honor of my late brother Dennis who passed away unexpectedly at the age of 19 when I was finishing my junior year in high school. I had initially planned to walk the Camino last year following the death of my Mom in November 2019 but the onset of a global pandemic forced the cancellation of that plan. While I am fully vaccinated, tested negative for Covid-19 this morning, have my Health Pass with QR code allowing me to travel freely within France and Spain, and will adhere strictly to all safety, asking, and social distancing protocols, the decision to pursue the Camino at this time has been one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make. I’ve trained hard for many months completing a number of daily 15 mile walks but in the end I know that I will need lots of prayer and God’s abundant grace to help me complete the 480 mile journey from St. Jean de Pied de Port, France to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain where St. James the Apostle is buried.
The physical and emotional demands of walking the Camino will be the most challenging undertaking of my life, harder for sure than the 6 marathons and several triathlons I competed in when I was in my late 40s and early-mid 50s. But I also know that the potential rewards from completing the walk could be far greater with a deeper understanding and appreciation for what the Lord may be calling me to do at this later stage of my life by asking Him a question many of us have asked Him throughout our earthly journey — “Lord, help me to know what you want so that I can want what you want and do what you want”.
I plan on creating a personal documentary of my Camino pilgrimage, especially what I hope to learn about myself through the physical, emotional, and spiritual stages of the walk as well as what I hope to learn from the other Pilgrims that I will meet along the way and what motivated them to want to walk their own Camino. In the end, we all look for that inner peace that only the Lord can provide with the hope that through personal transformation, each of us can become that best version of ourselves and that person the Lord has always called us to be.
A Special Request
As I begin my Camino, please let me know if you have lost someone special in your life and I will say a prayer and light a candle for them when I arrive at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in early October. Just respond here on my LinkedIn profile or send an email to jackvkirnan@gmail.com and provide me with their name and relationship to you. Special thanks and much love to my wife Jean and our extended family, my spiritual advisor Father Hank Hilton SJ, and the Men’s Cornerstone Group of St. Rose Parish in Belmar for their incredible support and encouragement these past few months.
Wishing all of you Buen Camino, Dr. K
