Camino: Walk with Jesus

By April Dai

  On April 2, 2022, I attended the Camino Pilgrim organized by Los Angeles Archdiocese. This is the first time LA Archdiocese had this kind of event to celebrate the 250th year of catholic faith in Los Angeles starting of San Gabriel Archangel Mission. The walk was a total of ten miles, starting from the San Gabriel Archangel Mission to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles.

 Typically, there isn't a chance to walk around the streets within Los Angeles, so when the opportunity was presented, I took the chance to be a part of something special during this Lent away from work, as I replied yes when my friend Penny asked me if I wanted to go.

  The pilgrimage began with a Mass in the morning, however prior to the pilgrimage starting, the host asked us to put an intention in this walk. I had so many intentions in my heart. Thought I wanted to pray about all of them during the walk.

  Although it seemed we were walking with Jesus, it was actually more like Jesus who walking with us. Throughout the walk we had couple stops at different churches. While praying for my intentions and looking at the stations of Cross at each church, it got me thinking we were lucky where we were just walking 10 miles carrying nothing without any pain.  When Jesus was walking, he was walking towards the place where He was to be crucified; He was also carrying the cross with a lot of pain. How much pain He was enduring? Can we even imagine? How can He even walk?

  Walking itself is not hard; what is hard is to keep focusing on Jesus towards the end when I was tired and feet and calf started hurting. After lunch, there was still about 45min to an hour walk from Cathedral High School to the Cathedral. My friends and I decided to do rosary and chaplet of divine mercy for this last journey. While doing rosary and chaplet of divine mercy it kind of made me forget the pain. “Jesus, I trust in you” kept pop into my head as it was telling me no matter what I need to put my focus on Jesus not myself. It was also so touching to hear people doing rosary in their own language.

  Finally, we made it to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angeles. It was a special experience to be able to do this Camino walk and also more Camino walk in the future. Hope one day I will be able to the Camino walk in Spain.