Black Friday on CdM

[timr]

I'm separating this off from my Live on The Camino thread which is here.
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/a-short-walk-continued.51788/

Black Friday

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day in the US. A 'holiday weekend'. It has spread like wildfire in UK and Ireland in the past few years. It is 'black' because it is a day of such unconstrained consumer spending that hard-pressed traders can move their accounts from the red into the black.

It is as widely promoted now as Christmas or Easter or Halloween. Unlike those days it hasn't the slightest connection with the Christian message. You cannot wish somebody a 'Happy Black Friday'. It has a single message - 'Spend, spend, spend.' No robins or bunnies or chicks, let alone a crib or a cross on the posters. Just very stark letters. Literally, in black and white.

Black Friday has arrived in Spain. They don't have a word for it. They call it Black Friday. Newspapers, TV and shops are screaming at you. Get out there and spend.

On Black Friday I was walking on the Camino de Madrid, from Peñaflor de Hornija to Medina de Rioseco. Across the broad featureless meseta, where wheat and sunflowers are grown. 36 solitary kilometres. No other pilgrim met.

On the way I stopped off at the ancient monastery of La Santa Espina, which to this day preserves a thorn from the Crown of Thorns given by King Louis IX of France who bought it long ago and built the Sainte Chapelle in Paris in which to keep it. The monks are gone, scattered by Napoleon. I met a couple of ancient de la Salle brothers who showed me the stunning church. The monastery building is now an agricultural college.

After a long day I arrived at Medina de Rioseco. The first building you come to in the town, adjacent to the bridge, which leads you in, is the Poor Clares Convent. It dates from. 1492. Poor Clares follow the rule of the ever cheerful St Clare, the companion of Francis of Assisi. They embrace a life of austere poverty, prayer and charity, and they live all their life enclosed in a particular convent. At Medina they have an albergue for pilgrims. It is a great monastic tradition along the Camino to care for pilgrims in this way.

A Sister left the enclosure to lead me across the courtyard to the albergue. I asked her if there was a supermarket in the town. (I didn't need to 'spend, spend,spend' but I wanted some fruit and energy bars, which are pilgrim staples.) 'Lo siento, no lo sé', she replied with a beautiful smile and a wistful look. 'I'm sorry, I don't know.'

Black Friday. Spend your life, not your money.

Follow your dream.

I'm crying.

Next morning, after Mass, I chatted with the Sisters through the grille. It is a bit like prison visiting but much more cheerful! They are just three in number. In their eighties. One has been bedbound for 16 years. A fourth died last month.

Sr Maria Concepcion told me she has lived within those walls for 64 years, since before I was born. They have a young Franciscan Sister from the Philippines helping to look after them at the moment. On December 8 they will all leave the convent finally. After 525 years it will be empty. They will go to stay with Franciscan Sisters in Valladolid.

I'm crying again.

(Just for the record, there is a Carrefours-Express 500m further up the road.)

 

[SabsP]

@timr. Thank you.

Black Friday : utterly empty and depressing. You described it perfectly. It is indeed the lowest form of consumerism.
In stark contrast to the sober life the Sisters lead.

And then there is a new trend too : Authors who write books " How to declutter your life and house ".

Buen Camino!

 

[Sailor]

Thanks for this, and believe it or not yesterday I received two emails from Renfe announcing two separate Black Friday bargains including discount for car rental. Black Friday was in English and the rest was in Spanish. Merry Christmas y que la luz de Dios alumbre su camino.

 

[Magwood]

Very interesting post, thank you. There was a young nun there earlier in the year who showed us to the albergue. Will the albergue remain operational after the nuns leave?

 

[timr]

Very interesting post, thank you. There was a young nun there earlier in the year who showed us to the albergue. Will the albergue remain operational after the nuns leave?

Yes Sister Mary Rose from Philippines. She is a Franciscan and is helping them. One died last month, another has been bed bound for 16y and just two fit, both very old. At least in the short term the albergue will close next month. They will all move to Mary Rose's convent in Valladolid Dec 8.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

@timr , thank you for sharing.

Wish you well,Peter.

 

[Levi]

Thank you. Buen Camino pilgrim.

 

[VNwalking]

Tim, this is such a poignant and touching post you have given us.
It speaks volumes about our collective values that there are long queues of people wanting buy more unnecessary (but expensive) junk, while the Poor Claires are dying out without replacement.
Well. We each choose how we live, and what we really need.
And (sorry @ivar) I chose not to click that 'black friday' button. Not ever. I'm so sorry this awful trend has been exported.

 

[natefaith]

A touching post, Tim; thanks for taking the time to write it. God bless the sisters as they leave the only home they've known for the last 64 years (!) .

 

[Robo]

A lovely post @timr
If only more people could somehow experience the Camino as we have, and start to learn what is really important in life.
Buen Camino.

 

[Robo]

I often wondered what Black Friday was........
I thought it was something about the Plague!
Stay indoors, it's Black Friday!!

Thankfully it hasn't reached our shores yet.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

A lovely post @timr
If only more people could somehow experience the Camino as we have, and start to learn what is really important in life.
Buen Camino.

Certainly not things like black friday's.

Wish you well,Peter.

 

[Sailor]

The same day I received those bargains notes from Spain, I received the email from REI here in USA to let me know that their stores were closing on Black Friday to celebrate their opt-out-day. God bless you y que la luz de Dios alumbre su camino.

 

[timr]

A touching post, Tim; thanks for taking the time to write it. God bless the sisters as they leave the only home they've known for the last 64 years (!) .

@natefaith hope to see you at the end of the week!

 

[nycwalking]

Yes Sister Mary Rose from Philippines. She is a Franciscan and is helping them. One died last month, another has been bed bound for 16y and just two fit, both very old. At least in the short term the albergue will close next month. They will all move to Mary Rose's convent in Valladolid Dec 8.

Where have all the nuns gone? On caminos I have seen quite a few as I walked through towns. I thought in Spain orders were as least holding their own if not flourishing. Thanks for post.
Buen camino.

 

[VNwalking]

I thought it was something about the Plague!
Stay indoors, it's Black Friday!!

It is, it is. Definitely.

 

[timr]

Where have all the nuns gone? On caminos I have seen quite a few as I walked through towns. I thought in Spain orders were as least holding their own if not flourishing. Thanks for post.
Buen camino.

Interestingly there are nuns still. These Poor Clares will go to live not faraway in Valladolid with young Sisters who are from Philippines and, interesting for me, Machakos in Kenya. I lived myself in Kenya for many years as a priest. But all over Europe the religious orders are dying out.

 

[Former member 49149]

Where have all the nuns gone? On caminos I have seen quite a few as I walked through towns. I thought in Spain orders were as least holding their own if not flourishing. Thanks for post.
Buen camino.

where have they all gone? maybe there is one ahead of you, behind you, who knows??? As they say where I come from, Listen, Morag: Come mothers and fathers throughout the land.... for the times they HAVE changed.That being said, it is a long time now since I visited a convent in Toledo where they had imported young women from remote villages in India, to keep the show on the road. Maybe I should just stop here and get on with cooking the dinner. It would take too long to go into a proper response to your question, nycwalking.

 

[timr]

where have they all gone? maybe there is one ahead of you, behind you, who knows??? As they say where I come from, Listen, Morag: Come mothers and fathers throughout the land.... for the times they HAVE changed.That being said, it is a long time now since I visited a convent in Toledo where they had imported young women from remote villages in India, to keep the show on the road. Maybe I should just stop here and get on with cooking the dinner. It would take too long to go into a proper response to your question, nycwalking.

I share your questioning and your doubts kirkie

 

[VNwalking]

But all over Europe the religious orders are dying out.

Few people in the West want to take up a practice that involves renuncication, other than temporarily.
The sea-tide of the culture tells us happiness is having stuff, and freedom to do and experience anything we want. And the more of all of that, the better.
Entering a religious life goes against the cultural stream, big time. And it's not easy.

Of course, it's not nearly as simple as that, as @timr and @kirkie are saying. But I think it's a huge part of the 'why?'

 

[jmcarp]

...

Black Friday. Spend your life, not your money.

Follow your dream.

I'm crying.

Next morning, after Mass, I chatted with the Sisters through the grille. It is a bit like prison visiting but much more cheerful! They are just three in number. In their eighties. One has been bedbound for 16 years. A fourth died last month.

Sr Maria Concepcion told me she has lived within those walls for 64 years, since before I was born. They have a young Franciscan Sister from the Philippines helping to look after them at the moment. On December 8 they will all leave the convent finally. After 525 years it will be empty. They will go to stay with Franciscan Sisters in Valladolid.

I'm crying again.

(Just for the record, there is a Carrefours-Express 500m further up the road.)

"Like" is not really a suitable response, but the forum structure doesn't go overboard on options for quick acknowledgements for posts like this. The decline in persons dedicated to the religious life is just another sign of today's world, just as Black Friday is a sign of where our priorities lie. Thanks for posting this reminder, @timr.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I just shared a lengthy comment/post regarding the Poor Clare nuns on your other post about the albergue closing at Medina de Rioseco, as I had read it first.

It is very interesting as in the city where I live exists one of the strictest Poor Clare orders. A female author was given permission to interview the nuns over a six year period and the book was a fascinating look into their world behind tall brick walls. More information is on my other post.

 

[Former member 49149]

ok, you guys: I am a nun. what does that mean? In my experience, it still means following a call I never asked for. Almost 50 years ago, now.It doesn't make me any holier than you. Any smarter than you. And you know very well we nuns are a dying breed. However, as you all know, you who are following the Camino, the way is long, has unexpected twists and turns, and will go on after we have passed on our way, just as it was there before our consciousness of it. I do admire those nuns who dedicate their lives to whatever is the apostolate of their particular convent. I would have climbed the walls, that's not my way! This post by timr is actually a lovely one to have put up, as a stand against Black Friday and all it stands for. Thanks, timr, and enjoy the rest of your journey this week.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

I truly dislike Black Friday consumerism and I stay holed up at home or take a walk in the woods...anything to avoid the retail parking lots filled to the brim with frenzied shoppers.

 

[VNwalking]

However, as you all know, you who are following the Camino, the way is long, has unexpected twists and turns, and will go on after we have passed o n our way, just as it was there before our consciousness of it.

@kirkie, you nailed it, on so many levels. Beautiful.
There's so much more to say, but I'll stop with thank you.

 

[Annette london]

ok, you guys: I am a nun. what does that mean? In my experience, it still means following a call I never asked for. Almost 50 years ago, now.It doesn't make me any holier than you. Any smarter than you. And you know very well we nuns are a dying breed. However, as you all know, you who are following the Camino, the way is long, has unexpected twists and turns, and will go on after we have passed on our way, just as it was there before our consciousness of it. I do admire those nuns who dedicate their lives to whatever is the apostolate of their particular convent. I would have climbed the walls, that's not my way! This post by timr is actually a lovely one to have put up, as a stand against Black Friday and all it stands for. Thanks, timr, and enjoy the rest of your journey this week.

Well said Kirkie
These are wonderful sisters ...a true calling for them

I was a nun for some years but realised it was not to be my life's work
It's a calling no easier ..or harder than other callings........just different.
Mine was to be in marriage and children

Mind you......I have often ...in moments of madness shouted " I should have stayed in the bloomin convent"!!! ...The children heard this a few times!!!!
But it was not to be

My friends who remained and work with victims of child trafficking in Kenya today are the ones that I truly admire and even reading their reports makes me shudder especially when compared to the shenanigans of Black Friday ....this is an import that we could certainly do without
And this consumerism is one reason as Kirkie says that nuns ARE a dying breed

Even the true meaning of Christmas has been lost somewhere along the line ......here in the UK the consumerism starts in October for heavens sake!! ........no time to stop and stare as they say!
With best wishes and a happy Christmas to all
Annette

 

[gittiharre]

I'm separating this off from my Live on The Camino thread which is here.
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/a-short-walk-continued.51788/
That is a beautiful post. Thank you very much. How very special you were able to stay there at such a significant moment just before the closure.
And yes the Black Friday thing is sickening. I had not been aware of it until this year somehow...
Black Friday

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day in the US. A 'holiday weekend'. It has spread like wildfire in UK and Ireland in the past few years. It is 'black' because it is a day of such unconstrained consumer spending that hard-pressed traders can move their accounts from the red into the black.

It is as widely promoted now as Christmas or Easter or Halloween. Unlike those days it hasn't the slightest connection with the Christian message. You cannot wish somebody a 'Happy Black Friday'. It has a single message - 'Spend, spend, spend.' No robins or bunnies or chicks, let alone a crib or a cross on the posters. Just very stark letters. Literally, in black and white.

Black Friday has arrived in Spain. They don't have a word for it. They call it Black Friday. Newspapers, TV and shops are screaming at you. Get out there and spend.

On Black Friday I was walking on the Camino de Madrid, from Peñaflor de Hornija to Medina de Rioseco. Across the broad featureless meseta, where wheat and sunflowers are grown. 36 solitary kilometres. No other pilgrim met.

On the way I stopped off at the ancient monastery of La Santa Espina, which to this day preserves a thorn from the Crown of Thorns given by King Louis IX of France who bought it long ago and built the Sainte Chapelle in Paris in which to keep it. The monks are gone, scattered by Napoleon. I met a couple of ancient de la Salle brothers who showed me the stunning church. The monastery building is now an agricultural college.

After a long day I arrived at Medina de Rioseco. The first building you come to in the town, adjacent to the bridge, which leads you in, is the Poor Clares Convent. It dates from. 1492. Poor Clares follow the rule of the ever cheerful St Clare, the companion of Francis of Assisi. They embrace a life of austere poverty, prayer and charity, and they live all their life enclosed in a particular convent. At Medina they have an albergue for pilgrims. It is a great monastic tradition along the Camino to care for pilgrims in this way.

A Sister left the enclosure to lead me across the courtyard to the albergue. I asked her if there was a supermarket in the town. (I didn't need to 'spend, spend,spend' but I wanted some fruit and energy bars, which are pilgrim staples.) 'Lo siento, no lo sé', she replied with a beautiful smile and a wistful look. 'I'm sorry, I don't know.'

Black Friday. Spend your life, not your money.

Follow your dream.

I'm crying.

Next morning, after Mass, I chatted with the Sisters through the grille. It is a bit like prison visiting but much more cheerful! They are just three in number. In their eighties. One has been bedbound for 16 years. A fourth died last month.

Sr Maria Concepcion told me she has lived within those walls for 64 years, since before I was born. They have a young Franciscan Sister from the Philippines helping to look after them at the moment. On December 8 they will all leave the convent finally. After 525 years it will be empty. They will go to stay with Franciscan Sisters in Valladolid.

I'm crying again.

(Just for the record, there is a Carrefours-Express 500m further up the road.)

 

[timr]

I just shared a lengthy comment/post regarding the Poor Clare nuns on your other post about the albergue closing at Medina de Rioseco, as I had read it first.

It is very interesting as in the city where I live exists one of the strictest Poor Clare orders. A female author was given permission to interview the nuns over a six year period and the book was a fascinating look into their world behind tall brick walls. More information is on my other post.

Thanks Chris I replied to your other post - you brought back an ancient memory for me!

 

[timr]

ok, you guys: I am a nun. what does that mean? In my experience, it still means following a call I never asked for. Almost 50 years ago, now.It doesn't make me any holier than you. Any smarter than you. And you know very well we nuns are a dying breed. However, as you all know, you who are following the Camino, the way is long, has unexpected twists and turns, and will go on after we have passed on our way, just as it was there before our consciousness of it. I do admire those nuns who dedicate their lives to whatever is the apostolate of their particular convent. I would have climbed the walls, that's not my way! This post by timr is actually a lovely one to have put up, as a stand against Black Friday and all it stands for. Thanks, timr, and enjoy the rest of your journey this week.

Thanks Kirkie. I'm a priest. I live in Kiltegan. You can join the dots....
The situation in Toledo you describe worries me. I don't think it's the answer. Your post is thoughtful and spot on. My lot are dying out in Ireland but growing rather separately in Africa. We, up to now, have not brought our young Africans north "to push our wheelchairs" and I hope we never will.
I hope to die out gracefully and perhaps just a bit disgracefully. I hope to walk from Canterbury to Rome next year after 11 Caminos. Blessings. x

 

[timr]

Well said Kirkie
These are wonderful sisters ...a true calling for them

I was a nun for some years but realised it was not to be my life's work
It's a calling no easier ..or harder than other callings........just different.
Mine was to be in marriage and children

Mind you......I have often ...in moments of madness shouted " I should have stayed in the bloomin convent"!!! ...The children heard this a few times!!!!
But it was not to be

My friends who remained and work with victims of child trafficking in Kenya today are the ones that I truly admire and even reading their reports makes me shudder especially when compared to the shenanigans of Black Friday ....this is an import that we could certainly do without
And this consumerism is one reason as Kirkie says that nuns ARE a dying breed

Even the true meaning of Christmas has been lost somewhere along the line ......here in the UK the consumerism starts in October for heavens sake!! ........no time to stop and stare as they say!
With best wishes and a happy Christmas to all
Annette

Thanks Annette. Everything you say speaks to me. I am a priest and a great admirer of mothers!

 

[Former member 49149]

timr, see what you have done! opened up a line of heart sharing! Thank you.

 

[VNwalking]

You are all wonderful. Thank you.
The wake up bell goes here very early, not long from now, and I am still up (alas). But it has been worth it.

 

[Purple Backpack]

What a beautiful thread. I had the wonderful opportunity a couple of times to stay in lodgings run by nuns on the VF. I found myself envying their lives, purposes, peace, dedication, community and...dare I say it? HAPPINESS! It was refreshing to have a brief respite from the world and experience theirs in a very small way, for a very brief time.

As for Black Friday, ugh. #OptOutside

 

[Saint Mike II]

Hola @timr. It will a sad loss for this small village (pueblo?) when the sisters leave - after 525 years (around 300 years before European settlement in Oz). Maybe the village should contact one of the organisation across Spain that operate "donativo" albergues to see if they can continue the secular side of the establishment.
On a historical note, hopefully the history of the Medina de Rioseco - monastery of La Santa Espina, will be recorded. As an adjunct last May whilst crossing the meseta I attended vespers with the sisters at Rabe de las Calzadas. It was a great evening experience, but sadly by my estimate not one of the sisters was less than 50 with many over 70. In contrast at Carrion de los Condes - albergue Santa Clara the wonderful sisters were all in their mid-30s and it was a thriving community.
Thanks again for bringing this sad event to our notice. Cheers

 

[RachelNZ]

I often wondered what Black Friday was........
I thought it was something about the Plague!
Stay indoors, it's Black Friday!!

Thankfully it hasn't reached our shores yet.

I hate to inform you but it has reached New Zealand, so it must be in Aussie as well. Terrible consumerism. What a waste.

 

[alexwalker]

Black Friday. Spend your life, not your money.

Follow your dream.

Another American import, like Halloween... The consumerism is killing our development as humans.

Speaking of silly consumerism: We men are always accused of messing up the house. But women are no better than us: However, they call it decorating...