Only later did her mother say that not all sins were boulders, that most in fact were more like pebbles. An unkind thought. A hungry heart. Small weights like greed and envy and want (things that didn’t seem to her like sins at all, but apparently they added up). More disappointing still was when María discovered that some who walk the pilgrims’ road are not guilty of a sin at all. That they make the trip not to atone for their past, but to secure their future. To ask for miracles, or intercessions, or simply pave the way into God’s grace.
