The Pilgrimage (17 page)

Medjugorje whose visitations had been noted in Yugoslavia ever since 1982 had indicated
that he should do this. And then we began another of the Christian rituals.

Andrew, rise and come before me, said the High Priest. The Australian approached the
altar, where the seven Knights were standing.

One of the Knights the one who must have been his guide spoke:

Brother, dost thou demand the company of the House?

Yes, answered the Australian. And then I under- stood which of the Christian rituals we
were witnessing: the initiation of a Templar.

Dost thou understand the great severities of the House and its charitable orders?

I am ready to support all of them, in Gods name, and I desire to be a servant and slave of
the House for- ever, through all the days of my life, answered the Australian.

There followed a series of ritual questions, some of which made no sense in todays world;
others were con- cerned with profound devotion and love. Andrew, with his head bowed,
responded to all of them.

Distinguished brother, thou art asking a great thing of me. But thou art seeing only the
outer layer of our religion the beautiful horses and the elegant vest- ments, said his
guide. But thou knowest not the hard demands made here within: it will be difficult for
thee,

who art master of thyself, to serve others; rarely wilt thou be able to do as thou
wishest. If thou desirest that thou be here, thou wilt be sent beyond the sea, and if thou
desirest that thou be in Acre, thou wilt be sent to Tripoli, or Antioch, or Armenia. And
when thou desirest sleep, thou wilt be told to stand guard, and when thou wantest to stand
guard, thou wilt be told to sleep in thy bed.

I desire to enter the House, answered the Australian. It felt as if all of the Templars
who had ever lived in the castle were happily attending the initiation ceremony; the
torches were crackling in earnest.

Several admonishments followed, and the Australian answered them all by saying that he
wanted to enter the House. Finally, his guide turned to the High Priest and repeated all
of the answers the Australian had made. The High Priest solemnly asked once more if he was
ready to accept all of the rules of the House.

Yes, Master, God willing. I come before God, before thee, and before the brothers, and I
implore and solicit thee, before God and Our Lady, to take me into thy company and into
the favors of the House, spiritually and temporally, as one who desires to be servant and
slave of the House from now on, for all the days of his life.

I bid you enter, by Gods love, said the High Priest.

With that, all of the Knights unsheathed their swords and pointed them toward heaven. Then
they lowered the blades and made of them a crown of steel

around Andrews head. The flames created a golden reflection on the blades, consecrating
the moment.

Solemnly his Master came to him. And he gave him his sword.

Someone began to toll a bell, and its notes echoed off the walls of the ancient castle,
infinitely repeating themselves. We all bowed our heads, and the Knights disappeared from
view. When we looked up, we were only ten; the Australian had left to join the Knights in
the ritual banquet.

We changed back into our street clothes and said our good-byes without any further
formalities. The dance must have lasted for a long time, because the day was brightening.
An immense loneliness invaded my soul.

I was envious of the Australian, who had recovered his sword and had reached the end of
his quest. Now I was alone, with no one to guide me; the Tradition in a distant country
in South America had expelled me without showing me the road back. And I had to con-
tinue to walk the Strange Road to Santiago, which was now coming to an end, without
knowing the secret of my sword or how to find it.

The bell continued to toll. As I left the castle, with dawn breaking, I noticed that it
was the bell of a nearby church, calling the faithful to the first mass of the day. The
people of the city were awakening to their work and their unpaid bills, their love affairs
and their dreams. But they didnt know that, on the previous night, an ancestral rite had
once again taken place, that what had

been thought of as dead and gone for centuries had once again been celebrated, and that it
continued to demonstrate its awesome power.

Are you a pilgrim? asked the little girl. She was the only person in sight on that blazing
afternoon in Villafranca del Bierzo.

I looked at her but didnt answer. She was about eight and poorly dressed. She had run to
the fountain where I had sat down to rest.

My only concern now was to get to Santiago de Compostela as quickly as possible and put an
end to this crazy adventure. I had not been able to forget the sadness in Petruss voice at
the train yard nor the way he had looked at me from a distance when I had met his gaze
during the ritual of the Tradition. It was as if all of the effort he had made in helping
me had led to nothing. When the Australian had been called to the altar, I was sure that
Petrus would have preferred that it had been I who had been called. My sword might very
well be hidden in that castle, the reposi- tory of legends and ancient wisdom. It was a
place that fit perfectly with all of my deductions: deserted, visited only by a few
pilgrims who respected the relics of the Order of the Templars, and located on sacred
ground.

But only the Australian had been called to the altar. And Petrus must have felt humiliated
in the presence of the others because, as a guide, he had not been capable of leading me
to my sword.

Besides this, the ritual of the Tradition had aroused in me again a bit of my fascination
with occult wisdom, most of which I had forgotten about as I made my way along the Strange
Road to Santiago, the Road of the common people. The invocations, the absolute control
over the material, the communication with other worlds all of that was much more
interesting to me than the RAM practices. But perhaps the practices had a more objective
application in my life; there was no doubt that I had changed a lot since I had begun to
walk the Strange Road to Santiago. Thanks to Petruss help, I had learned that I could pass
through waterfalls, win out over enemies, and converse with my messenger about practical
matters. I had seen the face of my death and the blue sphere of the love that consumes and
floods the entire world. I was ready to fight the good fight and turn my life into a
series of triumphs.

Yet a hidden part of me was still nostalgic for the magic circles, the transcendental
formulas, the incense, and the sacred ink. The ceremony that Petrus had called an homage
to the ancients had been for me an intense and healthful encounter with old, forgotten
lessons. And the possibility that I might never again have access to that world
discouraged me from wanting to go on.

When I had returned to my hotel after the ritual of the Tradition, there in my box, along
with my key, was a copy of The Pilgrims Guide. This was a book that Petrus had utilized
for orientation when the yellow markers were hard to find; it had helped us to calculate
the dis- tances between cities. I left Ponferrada that same morn- ing, without having
slept, and went out on the Road. By that afternoon, I had discovered that the map was not
drawn to scale, and that I had to spend a night out in the open, in a cave in the cliffs.

There, as I meditated on everything that had hap- pened to me since my meeting with Mme
Lourdes, I thought about the relentless effort Petrus had made to help me understand that
contrary to what we had always been taught, results were what counted. Ones efforts are
salutary and indispensable, but without results, they amount to nothing. And now the only
result that I demanded of myself, the only reward for everything I had been through, was
to find my sword. That had not happened yet, and Santiago was only a few days away.

If you are a pilgrim, I can take you to the Gates of Forgiveness, insisted the girl at the
fountain in Villafranca del Bierzo. Whoever passes through those gates need not go all the
way to Santiago.

I held out some pesetas to her so that she would go away and leave me alone. But instead
she began to splash the water in the fountain, wetting my knapsack and my shorts.

Come on, come on, she said again. At that moment, I was thinking about one of Petruss
repeated quota- tions: He that ploweth should plow in hope. He that thresheth in hope
should be partaker of his hope. It was from one of the letters of the apostle Paul.

I had to persevere for a little longer, to continue searching until the end, without being
fearful of defeat, to keep alive the hope of finding my sword and under- standing its
secret.

And who knows? was this little girl trying to tell me something that I didnt want to
understand? If the Gates of Forgiveness, which were part of a church, had the same
spiritual effect as arriving at Santiago, why couldnt my sword be there?

Lets go, I said to the child. I looked at the moun- tain that I had just descended; I was
going to have to climb part of it again. I had passed by the Gates of Forgiveness with no
desire to go to them, since my only goal was to get to Santiago. Now, here was a little
girl, the only human being present there on that hot after- noon, insisting that I go back
and see something I had decided to ignore. After all, why hadnt that little girl gone away
after I had given her some money? Could it be that, in my discouragement and haste, I had
walked right past my objective without recognizing it?

Petrus had always said that I liked to fantasize too much about things. But perhaps he was
wrong.

As I walked along with the girl, I was remembering the story of the Gates of Forgiveness.
They represented a

kind of arrangement that the Church had made for pil- grims who fell sick. From that point
on, the Road became once again difficult and mountainous all the way to Compostela, so
during the twelfth century, one of the popes had said that whoever was unable to go
further had only to pass through the Gates of Forgiveness to receive the same indulgences
as the pil- grims who made it to the end of the Road. With one magic gesture, that pope
had resolved the problem posed by the mountains and had inspired an increased number of
pilgrimages.

We climbed, following the same route I had traveled earlier in the day: twisting roads,
slippery and steep. The girl led, moving along very quickly, and many times I had to ask
that she go more slowly. She would do so for a while and then, losing her sense of pace,
would begin to run again. Half an hour later, and after much grum- bling on my part, we
reached the Gates of Forgiveness.

I have the key to the church, she said. I will go in and open the gates so you can pass
through them.

She went in through the main entrance, and I waited outside. It was a small church, and
the gates opened to the north. The door frame was decorated with scallop shells and scenes
from the life of San Tiago. As I heard the sound of the key in the lock, an immense German
shepherd, appearing out of nowhere, came up to me and stood between the portal and me.

I was immediately prepared for a fight. Not again, I thought. Is this story never going to
end? Nothing but

more and more tests, battles, and humiliations and still no clue about my sword.

At that moment, though, the Gates of Forgiveness swung open, and the girl appeared. When
she saw that the dog was watching me and that my eyes were already fixed on his she said
some affectionate words to him, and the dog relaxed. Wagging his tail, he fol- lowed her
toward the back of the church.

Maybe Petrus was right. Maybe I did like to fantasize about things. A simple German
shepherd had been transformed in my mind into a threatening supernat- ural being. That was
a bad sign a sign of the fatigue that leads to defeat.

But there was still hope. The girl signaled to me to enter. With my heart full of
expectation, I passed through the Gates of Forgiveness, thereby receiving the same indul-
gences as the pilgrims who went all the way to Santiago.

My gaze swept over the empty, undecorated church, seeking the only thing I cared about.

At the top of all the columns you can see shells. The shell is the symbol of the Road,
began the girl. This is Santa Agueda of ...

Before long, I could see that it had been useless to come all the way back to this church.

And this is San Tiago Matamoros, brandishing his sword. You can see dead Moors under his
horses hooves. This statue was made in ...

San Tiagos sword was there but not mine. I offered a few more pesetas to the girl, but she
would not accept

them. A bit offended, she ended her explanations about the church and asked me to leave.

Once again I walked down the mountain and resumed my pilgrimage toward Compostela. As I
passed through Villafranca del Bierzo for the second time, a man approached me. He said
that his name was Angel and asked if I would be interested in seeing the Church of Saint
Joseph the Carpenter. The mans name gave me hope, but I had just been disappointed, and I
was beginning to see that Petrus was an expert observer of behavior. People do have a
tendency to fantasize about things that do not even exist, while they fail to learn the
lessons that are before their very eyes.

But perhaps just to confirm this tendency one more time, I allowed myself to be led by
Angel to this other church. It was closed, and he did not have a key. He pointed to the
framework of the entrance with its carv- ing of Saint Joseph, his carpentry tools close
alongside him. I nodded, thanked him, and offered him some pesetas. He refused them and
left me there in the middle of the street but not before saying, We are proud of our
city. It is not for money that we do this.

I returned to the Road and in fifteen minutes had left Villafranca del Bierzo behind
Villafranca del Bierzo, with its doors, its streets, and its mysterious guides who asked
nothing in exchange for their services.

I walked for some time through mountainous ter- rain; my progress was slow and demanding.
As I started out, I thought only about my previous worries

solitude, shame at having disappointed Petrus, my sword and its secret. But soon the
images of the little girl and of Angel began insistently to come to mind. While I had been
focusing only on what I would gain, they had done the best for me that they could. And
they had asked for nothing in return. A vague idea began to surface from deep inside me.
It was some sort of link among all the things I was thinking about. Petrus had always
insisted that the expectation of reward was absolutely necessary to the achievement of
victory. Yet every time that I forgot about the rest of the world and began to think only
about my sword, he forced me, through his painful lessons, to return to reality. This was
a sequence that had occurred repeat- edly during our time together on the Road.

There was some reason for this, and it was somehow connected with the secret of my sword.
What was hiding there inside me began to coalesce and come to light. I still was not sure
what it was that I was thinking, but something told me that I was looking in the right
direction.

I appreciated having run into the little girl and Angel; they had shown something of the
love that consumes in the way they spoke about their churches. They had caused me to go
over the same ground twice, and because of this, I had forgotten my fascination with the
ritual of the Tradition and had returned to the fields of Spain.

I remembered a day long ago when Petrus had told me that we had walked several times over
the same part

of the Road in the Pyrenees. I remembered that day with nostalgia. It had been a good
beginning, and who knew but what this repetition of that event was not an omen of a
positive outcome.

That night I arrived at a village and asked for a room at the home of an old lady. She
charged me a pittance for my bed and food. We chatted a bit, and she talked about her
faith in Jesus of the Sacred Heart and her wor- ries about the olive crop in that drought
year. I drank some wine, had some soup, and went to bed early.

I was feeling better about things, mainly because of the concept that was developing in my
mind and the fact that it felt ready for expression. I prayed, did some of Petruss
exercises, and decided to invoke Astrain.

I needed to talk to him about what had happened during the fight with the dog. That day he
had almost caused me to lose, and then, after his refusal in the episode of the cross, I
had decided to do away with him forever. On the other hand, if I had not recognized his
voice during the fight, I would have given in to the temptations that had appeared.

You did everything possible to help Legion win, I said.

I do not fight against my brothers, Astrain answered. It was the response I had expected.
I had already pre- dicted that he would say this, and it didnt make sense to get irritated
with the messenger for being himself. I had to seek out in him the ally who had helped me
at times like this, for that was his only function. I put my rancor

aside and began to tell him animatedly about the Road, about Petrus, and about the secret
of the sword, which I felt was beginning to formulate itself in my mind. He had nothing
important to say only that these secrets were not available to him. But at least I had
someone to open up with after having spent the entire afternoon in silence. We had been
talking for hours when the old lady rapped on my door to tell me that I was talking in my
sleep.

I awoke feeling more optimistic and took to the Road early. According to my calculations,
that afternoon I would reach Galicia, the region where Santiago de Compostela was located.
It was all uphill, and I had to exert myself for almost four hours to keep to the pace I
had set for myself. Every time I reached the crest of a hill I hoped that it would mark
the point of descent. But this never seemed to happen, and I had to give up any hope of
moving along more rapidly. In the distance I could see mountains that were even higher,
and I real- ized that sooner or later I was going to have to cross them. My physical
exertions, meanwhile, had made it impossible to think much, and I began to feel more
friendly toward myself.