Jim Ryan has been an avid cyclist all his life. At 70, he decided to put his cycling muscles to the test, making “el camino,” the traditional pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. He’s doing it with the prayers of his St. Robert Bellarmine Parish family and in hopes of raising money for the parish school. Ryan left Chicago on Sept. 22 and was on the trails, in rain so heavy he had to push his rented mountain bike uphill, the next day. He expected the roughly 430- mile pilgrimage to take three weeks, he said. On Oct. 12, he posted a picture of himself holding his certificate of completion on Facebook. Mary Fuller, one of Ryan’s five children, said that the first week included more steep inclines than he expected and was difficult for her father, but he was still expecting to finish on schedule. “I think he’s been getting his legs underneath him now,” Fuller said. “The first part of the trip was pretty mountainous.” Visitors to his Facebook page are treated to photos of open land scapes, churches and lots of images of pilgrims from all over the world coming together for meals at the end of the day. The weather was often cool and damp; in one entry, Ryan said it felt more like Ireland than Spain. Ryan received a blessing — along with lots of religious medals — at a Mass at St. Robert Sept. 19. He’s been a parishioner there for more than four decades, and all five of his children went to school at St. Robert. “Sister Mary Lou (Stoffel, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur) gave me about five pounds of medals,” Ryan joked before leaving for the airport. “I’ve got plenty of the good stuff. I’m going to have to take them off to get through security.” “It’s inspirational,” Fuller said. “He has big ideas. He’s doing it for his own personal pilgrimage, for his own spiritual life, but also to give back to St. Robert.” Ryan has created a gofundme.com page for his trip, with a goal of raising $10,000. Ryan said that he first learned of the camino when Pope John Paul II visited Santiago de Compostela in 1989, and then was inspired to make the journey himself after seeing the 2010 movie “The Way.” That film was something of a family project for Martin Sheen and his son, Emilio Estevez. “After I saw that, I really wanted to do it,” Ryan said. Ryan’s Facebook Page To contribute to St. Robert Bellarmine School in honor of his pilgrimage, visit www.gofundme.com/srbjourney.
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Catholics welcome icon of Mary as ‘we would all like to be welcomed’ On a cloudy Thursday morning, more than a hundred people gathered near the northwest corner of Humboldt Park to welcome the statue of the Virgen de San Juan de los Lagos to Chicago.
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