On the Camino de Santiago their are many examples of how the body and mind has been healed by the power that is in the belief of the healed, the healer, and the community. At times the healer can be the Camino itself.

A Brazilian women in her 40s spoke to me about a time she was traveling on the French route with her younger sister.  The two of them were religious but were doing the Camino more-so for site seeing and exercise rather than religious reasons. She began to get tired of her journey with her sister, she was getting annoyed, frustrated and wanted to go home. Suddenly, as she was walking she looked down and saw her mother’s feet walking besides her instead of her sisters. It had been a few years since her mother had passed and suddenly an immediate change in spirit washed over her. It was a Camino miracle, all her frustration were removed and se was glad to walk again.

Testimonials from healings in Church rectory

The community showed their belief at a church just outside Padron called Sataurio de Virxe da Escravitude. I was led to a back room by a hurried but friendly man in his 50s who was saying “stamps, stamps”. I quickly hurried  to the back as he led me and others into what were once the private quarters of holy members of the church. Immediately he sat down with authority and began stamping pilgrims passports one by one as they cycled in. Instead of getting a stamp and leaving I was distracted by a looming 30 foot high wall of about 80 panels of paintings. I asked him what these panels depicted and with his eyes wide and full of excitement he said they are all miracles. In this area, whenever someone experienced a miracle they would paint the scene on a panel and send them to us and we would display them. Now we have so many that we announce them and pray for them during mass. The stories were written in Galician beginning from the early 1800s. Most of them depict a sick person in a bed with the Virgen Mary at their feet or over the bed shinning brightly. There was no doubt in his mind that the miracles were real, nor the families of the healed persons who commissioned these paintings.

Testimonial of a healing

1867 This patient was taken ill and asked the Virgen for healing. She was thus healed.

At times the healers are not of the divinity type but are a helpful couple that revealed themselves to me as Camino angels. They say that the Camino is like a confessional at church and they have naturally been the healers to those who need to relieve the pressure on their hearts that have weighed them down like a heavy pack on a pilgrim. This couple has known each other for 35 years but have just rekindled their old flame after both having gone threw divorces and have now been dating for 3 months. They take pleasure in the fact that pilgrims feel comfort in walking with them and talking to them about all their issues. Although they may talk to them for anywhere from a few hours to a few days and never see them again, the conversation remain very intimate. The couple has seen men cry profusely on the Camino because of their help. It is a type of healing that the camino provides. For those who do walk the Camino for healing, they can find it through visions, on the walls a church, or in the deep conversations with angels.