Day 10: Most Wanted Status

There are two things you need to know about today:

1. I got to use my squirt gun, rain free.

2. One of the like 5 words Father Pascal knows in English is "terrorist".

Can you see where this is going?  Basically, my innocent mid-morning sneak attack ended with Father repeating over and over again, "Erin! Terrorist! Terrorist!", followed by instructions to shoot Chris with my squirt gun to wake him up in the morning.  Needless to say, Father is hilarious, my face will be on "Most Wanted Pilgrim" signs along the way tomorrow, and Chris cannot stop laughing.

Today was our tenth day of walking!  Double digits!  We set out around 7am, and we were greeted by a beautiful morning...

and these weird looking pilgrims...

Along the way today, we started seeing kilometer markers, like this:

They marked almost every kilometer.  For me, I'd really rather not know and just walk.  For Chris, these aren't just mile markers--no, they are beaming totems of motivation.  Hence, most of my day looked like this:

Except, Chris was usually even farther ahead.  I've only ever seen him move so quickly at amusement parks when strategizing in which order he should ride roller coasters.  Meanwhile, I was trudging along in his dust, sure that if I tripped and fell, I would just lay there for the rest of the day.  Good thing I managed to stay upright.

  Eventually, we slowed down a bit, I caught back up, and by noon, we were walking into Santo Domingo, the small town where we are staying tonight.  Maybe it was the heat that came early on, maybe it was the pace, maybe I just needed more coffee, and maybe we've been walking for 10 days, but tonight I am going to sleep well! 

Mass tonight was so beautiful!!

And that was just the little chapel.  Check out the bell tower of the cathedral!

Today was a harder one of the days, but beautiful and good.  It is sweet to be with Jesus always.  Father said tonight in his homily that a Christian is someone who is completely enamoured with Jesus, who is caught up in love with His Sacred Heart.

He's right.  Anything else there is to bring Christian has that loving relationship as its source.

"In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins."

 1 John 4:10

Happy Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!  How sweet it is that Love Himself desires us to fall in love with Him!

+JMJ+