From a small hermitage, called “HERMITAGE OF OUR LADY OF THE MONASTERY” the Daughters of Charity go out every day to meet the thirsty pilgrims on their way to Compostela (Spain). This hermitage is located in RABÉ DE LAS CALZADAS, a village about 8 miles from Burgos. It is the French Route, which runs 480 miles from Saint-Jean-Pied- de-Port to Santiago. It has 32 stages.

Rabé is in the 14th stage which covers Burgos – Castrojeriz. There are 295 miles ahead to Santiago.

But there is an INTERIOR WAY, which is not counted in miles and which marks your steps. It is there, on that road, where the welcome and the openness come together, the Medal and the Thirst, the 2 gazes that will remain forever engraved in the heart. What happens in this place, far from the big cities, is not easy to describe, rather, as Saint-Exupéry said: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Every morning the Daughters, with open hearts and arms, give the Miraculous Medal on all the pilgrims who willed to enter this haven of peace and offer their lives at the foot of the altar. The brief pause makes them confront their inner path with the STAR they are following; their shadows with the LIGHT that envelops them and at that moment everything is consecrated. Transcendence has penetrated the mud of our immanence. Finally tears, not of pain but of joy, melt our lives in a sublime embrace, a sign of pure gospel. It has dawned in Bethlehem. It is a new rebirth and it happens at dawn, at midday, at sunset…

At the exit of the Hermitage we have added this mural: ANGELUS OF THE PILGRIM, the believer has his STOP times at work, to connect with transcendence, there is the dawn, noon and dusk, 6 h, 12 h and 18 hours, the stars mark as the clock that silent march along the WAY OF LIFE.

The pilgrim in the center is from Denmark who walked the Camino in 2016. All races all nations invite us to cry out with Psalm 150 “EVERY BEING THAT LIFTS PRAISE THE LORD.”

Ana Dignoes, DC