[Gocamino] Coincidence

[Philippe pip]

The camino to Santiago brings a lot to us in terms of personal experience, emotions and surprises, I have also experienced a few troubling cases of coincidence but none of them as striking as this one.  After much hesitation,  I decided to share it with you.
 
On my very first pilgrimage walk to Santiago in 2004, as I was leaving the Le Puy-en-Velay cathedral , I wrote a prayer which I left in the intended prayers' box.  This little piece of paper ,  I hoped,  would be picked up by another pilgrim.  One can indeed take a prayer from the box and carry it anonymously in your heart or in your head, thinking about it daily or praying to it ,  until one arrives at one's destination.  
 
I therefore wrote a prayer to my son Patrick, whose health is poor,  and to two persons very dear to me but who left this world,  my father and my grand mother.  I only signed it with my first name: Philippe.  An unknown pilgrim would hopefully carry it and pray for them, just the same way as I took a prayer from the box from someone unknown to me.
 
One can make great encounters on the camino :  a few days later, as I was going through the Aubrac plateau,  I met Ludovic, a Dutch pilgrim.  We got on well,  we talked a lot and exchanged personal details about our lifes.  From that walk in 2004, a long term friendship was born:  each year,  either Ludovic visits me in England where I live,  or I visit him in Tilburg in Holland,  or we meet on the camino in the summer .   Ludovic not only has the spirit of pilgrim but also of a hospitalero:  each year,  he spends some time in the Lectoure presbytary to care for pilgrims,  feed them and take care of their lodgings.
 
As I was at Ludovic's last month,  celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary to his wife Marian with some friends,  Ludovic came to me and in a serious voice , said "  I have something to share with you " .  He proceeded handing over to me a small folded piece of paper that read   "  a prayer for the health of my son Patrick and to the memory of two persons dear to me, my father and my grandmother -  Philippe ,  May 19th 2004 "
 
Thunderstruk, speechless and moved to tears,  I asked Ludovic how come he came by this piece of paper, since he had never mentioned it to me before.   Ludovic explained he picked it up from the prayer box but had never made the connection in 2004 between the Philippe in the document and the Philippe he was walking with.   Nor about the Patrick in the prayer with the Patrick I was telling him about .  It is only in 2007 ,  going through his old credentials and guides that he found my original prayer -  and only then recognised my hand writing and the names of the persons he had in the meantime got to know.
 
This coincidence left me stuck on my chair and I could only repeat -  like in a stuck record " what an incredible coincidence ! " But Ludovic corrected me "   There is no such things as coincidence, he said -  it is only the Divine talking to you when He does not want to sign off his name "
 
Philippe