The Healing Journey

September 17, 2023

When someone we love dies, even if the relationship has been a troubled one, we will often seek closure and reconciliation on our healing journey … sometimes by going on an actual journey.

The Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, is a pilgrimage route that goes back to the Middle Ages and leads to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, where the relics of St. James the Greater reside. More than a dozen routes through France, Spain and Portugal converge on the cathedral.

Countless pilgrims follow the various routes for their spiritual growth. The late Pope Benedict XVI said, “It is a way sown with so many demonstrations of fervor, repentance, hospitality, art and culture, which speak to us eloquently of the spiritual roots of the old continent.”

Some even undertake the pilgrimage as a form of grieving, as actor Martin Sheen did in the movie “The Way.” The film was directed and written by his son Emilio Estevez, who plays the son of an American ophthalmologist — played by Sheen — who goes on the pilgrimage to complete what his son had started until he was struck by lightning and died on a mountain pass in France.

Sheen’s character, who is named Tom, travels to France to get his son’s cremains from a police captain.

Tom takes them and says, “I’m going to walk the Camino de Santiago.”

The captain replies, “Mr. Avery, if you’ll pardon me, please, you are not prepared to go on this trip. You have no equipment, or —“
“I’ve got Danny’s back pack and all of his stuff,” Tom tells him.

“But you haven’t trained for this walk, and no disrespect, you are more than 60 years old,” the captain says.

“So it’ll take me a bit longer than most.”

“You’ll be lucky if you finish in two months.”

“Well, then I’d better get started. We’re leaving in the morning.”

“We?” the captain asks, confused.

Tom holds up the box with his son’s ashes and says, “Both of us.”

Sheen meets others on his trek, some who have also suffered a loss. Throughout the journey, Sheen has visions of his son, who is smiling because his father, with whom he had a stormy relationship, was finishing the pilgrimage for both of them.

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