We loaded up for the last time on Tuesday morning and turned our face toward home. Before we left, we gathered at the center of the camp and read Ps. 84 and a few other pieces of Scripture and offered prayer, beginning our last Pilgrimage Eucharist. We have celebrated Holy Eucharist almost every day of this journey, using whatever bread we had on hand, often in whatever location we had available. Today we have a “Eucharist on the Run.” Our liturgy of the Word complete, we climb into our vehicles (Millie and the Wookmobile) and head down US 287. We pass glamorous locations along the way such as Chillicothe, Quanah and Claude. The pilgrims sleep, mostly, and the adults avoid sleep at all costs.
We stop in Vernon for lunch at an Italian restaurant, which gave us our own dining room and had a good last meal together. After lunch we gather in a saloon parking lot and continue our Eucharist on the Run, using Millie’s hood as our table. We receive Christ anew in that place, reminding each of us that Christ can be found, truly, anywhere, and we wait for the final blessing and dismissal for our return at St. Anne.
Naturally, we face one last obstacle. Our arrival on the edge of Ft. Worth coincides precisely with rush hour. However, we are carried through that storm and roll into the Saint Anne parking lot, greeted by signs and banners and a band, of sorts. The pilgrims pile out and greet their families, but are then brought to the labyrinth for one last leg of the journey.
In the middle ages, pilgrims who were intent on traveling to Jerusalem, were often unable to go because of war or other strife. An alternative was to travel to one of the great medieval cathedrals. In some of these places, the labyrinth was the last leg of 
the pilgrimage, winding through the path to the center, to know one had truly completed the journey. And so, the sponsors began and walked in through our labyrinth, finding the center and pausing for prayer. The pilgrims followed one by one. The adults wound their way out, leaving the center to the pilgrims. By their own choice and design, they took hands and offered prayers around that circle of ten. Fr. Andrew offered the blessing and dismissal, adding “Your pilgrimage is ended; your journey goes ever on” and the pilgrims began their walk out of the labyrinth. This walk they did linked one to another, hands on shoulders, so that none should be left behind, a symbol of the community formed on this journey. As they exited the labyrinth, each was greeted with “Welcome home!”
