[Gocamino] El Camino items

[Rosina]

Hello you all,
Being that the Camino traffic is slow, and that I'm confined home by a ghastly flu, and by an outside temperature in New York City of about 5F (20 BELOW zero centigrade?), I thought I'd pass on some Camino/Santiago news:
Sivia Rozas  developed and administered (brilliantly, as we all must agree)  the Press and Commnications office of the Santiago Archdiocese since 2003. A Galician, she was born in Lugo in 1975; studied journalism in USC (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), graduated summa cum laude therefrom and then obtained a graduate degree in Theology from the (gorgeous) Pontifical university in Salamanca. After being offered every prestigious press post throughout Spain she has just informed that she will join the Hijas de Jesus religious order seeking to become a contemplative nun.  On the 29th of this month she will begin her novitiate at the Berraspe convent/college in Madrid. Ms Rozas says that the closing of the Holy Door coincides with the change in her life: "One stage closes to begin another; one has to look for one's door and find the key to it in the heart". She adds "In life it is necessary  to find out what one wants, what is happening in one's soul, how to focus one's existence in the short time of living, and how to find contentment in one's interior  day by day existance".  The religious order that she has chosen precludes communication with the outside. (Sigh!) I have read many of the articles that she wrote, and, for one, I sure wish that she had written a book before going into silence.

During the 2010 Holy Year there was a small alms collection box at the Cathedral marked "for ether upkeep and maintenance of the church building"; apparently the 10 million or so people who visited the Cathedral were not niggardly and the funds donated have been, and will continue to be, used in the creation and rehabilitation of many albergues and Camino-related edifices and facilities.  A portion of those funds (about 1.5 million Euro)s will be used for the exhibitions and cultural celebrations that will accompany next April's observance of the 800th anniversary of the consecration of the Santiago Cathedral by Alfonso IX.  The building by the horses' fountain in Platerias is being entirely rebuilt and will house the Pilgrims' Museum, Special Camino photographic and artistic exhibitions, and will handle the overflow of Pilgrims from the Pilgrims' office.  Because of the momentous celebrations of the eight hundredth anniversary, the number of pilgrims and visitors to Santiago this year is not expected to diminish significantly. Also, the discontinuance of the 3 Euros charge at the non-private albergues is being contemplated.

Pilgrims who are members of the Archconfraternity, or who have visited the ever-helpful Archconfraternity office in Quintana square,  will surely remember its ever-helpful secretary, Susana.  A psychologist by profession, and the Archconfraternity's "secretary" (administrator) by choice, she married last April and expects to become a mother next April.
And so it goes.
Also, the initial steps to form the first Santiago Confraternity in the United States are proceeding apace.
Hugs!
Rosina