We visited the basilica of St. Teresa of Avila in Alba de Tormes near the end of our Spanish pilgrimage. To call it “unfinished” would be something of an understatement.

Where we want to be.

Where we are now…about 20% done or less.

Still, I had no problem filling the supposed €4 million shortfall with a few euros of my own, though it looked a lot more like a €40 million hole that needed filling.

Besides, who could refuse such a lovely child?

Fast-forward to our last day, when I found myself buying two bottles of water from our dedicated bus captain Luis, with a homeless man beside me asking for help. I already had a €2 coin in my hand…so I paid Luis, and turned the vagrant away.

Which may explain why I awoke in the wee hours of this morning, just one week and a few hours after returning home. I was roused prematurely by a distressing dream with a persistent undertone of betrayal, but try as I might to recall the dream, the only thing that came to mind was the vagrant scene, ending with him uttering a plaintive:

Why?

If that’s not a call to Examen, I don’t know what would be.

In the meantime, I’ll heed the request of St. Teresa of Avila (seen at the Convent of the Incarnation):

“I will not ask, but that you seek Him.”