The Diocese of Pamplona, in Navarre (Spain), greets pilgrims beginning the Spanish leg of their Camino de Santiago journey with an altarpiece featuring 16 saints represented in busts, each containing a relic at chest level. These are splendid busts carved in wood using traditional Catholic sculpture techniques.
Two of these busts are related to the Augustinian Recollect Family: one is Saint Augustine, the other Saint Ezekiel Moreno. As the first addition to the altarpiece, they were solemnly blessed during the Pilgrim’s Mass on Sunday, August 9th.
The professed religious of the final stage of initial formation of the Augustinian Recollects were in Marcilla (Navarra) carrying out some days of charismatic formation in the Navarrese convent of Marcilla.
There were a total of 43 simple professed members who are preparing to, in the coming years, take the solemn vows that will definitively incorporate them into the Order of Augustinian Recollects and, in the case of those who also have this vocation, they are doing the theological studies prior to priestly ordination.
These Formation Days focus on the study of the spirituality, charism, and history of their Order for the three major seminaries of the Order’s three Provinces in Las Rozas (Madrid), Madrid, and Monachil (Granada). They traveled to Roncesvalles accompanied by their formators and members of the Marcilla community, which is hosting them for these days.
The Eucharist, in which a large group of pilgrims on their way to Santiago also participated, was presided over by the prior of the Marcilla community, Pablo Panedas. Concelebrating were the three Recollect formators, other religious from Marcilla, and several diocesan priests from the area. After the solemn entrance procession, the reliquary busts, which occupied a prominent place on the altar, were blessed.
In his homily, the preacher highlighted the importance of Roncesvalles as a central hub of the French Way of St. James, while emphasizing pilgrimage as the key to Christian life.
He was also a key figure for the two saints who were the protagonists, who lived and instilled their sense of pilgrimage both in their pastoral work and in their writings. As a necessary, but always moving, finale, the Eucharist concluded with the pilgrims gathering at the foot of the altar to receive the Pilgrim’s Blessing, the first in Spain of those they will receive along the 745 km that remain to be covered.
As an extra gesture of kindness from the organizer, Father Bibiano Esparza, the members of the Recollect delegation were given a detailed explanation of the entire altarpiece of saints of Navarre, which as a whole will be blessed on September 19.
