Pilgrim

The term pilgrim (from the lat. peregrīnus) refers in its most classic meaning to the traveler who, by devotion or vow, visits a sanctuary or some place considered sacred. In its most general meaning, it is anyone who walks through strange lands. In a strict sense, for the Spanish of the Catholic religion, a pilgrim is someone who goes to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela to visit the tomb of the apostle. Thus, by the destination of his pilgrimage, he is differentiated from the walkers who go to other sites of deep spiritual significance in Catholicism: the pilgrim, who makes it to Rome following one of the Rome roads, where the Pope lives, considered the successor of Saint Peter, and the palm tree, which is heading to Jerusalem and in general to the Holy Places.

Conception of life as a pilgrimage

The conception of human life as a pilgrimage is common to many peoples and traditions. In fact, the path constitutes one of the four or five major primordial metaphors that belong to the cultural heritage of all time. It is an archetypal symbol, already present in the oldest civilizations and in the deep psyche of human beings, and which is reflected in daily expressions related to the so-called "path of life". This allows us to define man as a " itinerant animal". Hence, the consideration of "life as a pilgrimage" is linked in many cultures and religions with the idea of the transcendent origin of man, while the trips and falls of walkers are considered as a representation of their failures, shortcomings and errors. The desire or aspiration to return to the initial state of innocence or purity, gives man a character of "foreigner in this earthly life", while remembering his transitory and perishable condition in all the steps of it.

The poet León Felipe expressed the experience of pilgrimage like few others in the following verses by Romero solo:

Being in rosemary life,
rosemary only that always crosses new paths.
Being in rosemary life,
No more trade, no other name and no people.
Being in rosemary life... only rosemary.
Don't make things quiet in the soul or in the body,
pass through all once, once only and light,
light, always light.

Don't get used to step on the same floor,
neither the boarding of the farce, nor the slab of the temples
so we never pray
like the sacristan prayers,
Not like the old comic
Let's say the verses.
The idle hand is the one who has the finer touch on his fingers,
said Prince Hamlet, seeing
how he digged a pit and sang at the same time
a gravedigger.

Not knowing the trades we will respect them.
To bury the dead
as we must
anyone serves, anyone... except a gravedigger.
One day we all know
to do justice. As well as the Hebrew King
Sancho made it the squire
and the villain Pedro Crespo.

Don't make things quiet in the soul or in the body.
Pass for all once, once only and light,
light, always light.
Sensible to all winds
and under all the heavens,
poets, never sing
the life of the same people
not the flower of one orchard.
May all peoples be
and all our orchards.

León

Attributes of the pilgrim

The pilgrim's attributes are the staff, the path, the cloak, the well with the water of salvation, the pilgrim's shell. Their meanings are diverse:

• the cayado or cane symbolizes at the same time the proof of resistance and stripping;
• the open morral is a symbol of humility;
• the conch of the pilgrim It was the distinguishing between those who returned from the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela; among other meanings, the shell symbolizes death and rebirth.

In the Middle Ages

The shell (vieira) of Santiago, symbol of the pilgrimage.

In the Catholicism of the Middle Ages, three classes of pilgrims were distinguished:

1. Romeros, those who went to Rome.
2. Palm trees, those who went to Jerusalem.
3. Lights. Pilgrims properly said, those who went to Santiago de Compostela.
4. Crucenos, those who went to Santo Toribio de Liébana.

In general, it implied a reference to some form of:

• penitence, self-imposed or sacramentally imposed;
• enlargement of a promise;
• penance or promise on behalf of another person prevented for any reason from making the pilgrimage.

The penitent undertook the trip as a form of atonement for his faults. Some penitents carried the sin written on a document that they deposited on the altar of the sanctuary.

The pilgrims used to wear special clothing, especially with regard to accessories that came to constitute symbols: the zurrón (backpack or anapola, a large leather bag, which shepherds regularly use to store and carry their food or other things), the staff or cane, a wide-brimmed hat, a cape with a cape, and a gourd to store water or wine. They also used to wear the famous scallop shell or venera as a badge.

Sponsorship of pilgrims

In Catholicism, the Archangel Raphael is considered the patron saint of pilgrims.