Sil wrote: "the ideal for a pilgrim to St James is one of holy poverty and not luxury".
After a deeply satisfying pilgrimage to Lourdes, staying at a 3 star hotel there and doing the Lourdes things, I managed to persuade my wife of 35 years to do the St James Walk in parts. I started to peruse this site to get more information and learnt a lot, it however turned into an information overload. My first question on this forum was to elicit what is a pilgrimage, and how the pilgrim should behave on the Way to St James. I had some extremely disturbing answers to this simple question. On the forum I keep reading of bed-bugs. Cold water showers or no showers. Insufficient and dirty toilets, and queues at washing places. Being turned away at albergues, sleeping on floors. No where to buy food. Rustling plastic bags, switching on lights, waking people before dawn. The race for beds. Sleeping in dormitories and advises to use earplug.
I could not risk turning our pilgrimage into a rite of penance, and did our first stage staying in modest accommodation. We took time out to appreciate the culture, historical buildings, and the people we met. We took time off to divert to Lisbon and Fatima before returning to see Santiago.
Your sentence above is like a ray of light: it answers my question and I will gladly accept holy poverty, I can even persuade my wife to accept it. But I know she would dread, as others, wholly unnecessary sufferings from bedbugs; sleeping on floors; noisy and inconsiderate dormitory mates; cold showers and dirty toilets; no room at the inn; etc. all these are human failings, and is not a condition to live in holy poverty.
This posting may be out of context but is an honest comment after reading so many postings and blogs on the Camino.