Climb every mountain

Solemnity of All Saints

As many of you are aware, I have just returned from a pilgrimage to France. It concluded with a visit to the Alpine shrine dedicated to Our Lady of La Sallete. The beautiful, serene, cloud enshrouded mountaintops, provide every visitor with a breathtaking panorama. Despite the sanctity of this shrine and the grandeur of the scenery, the crowd was relatively small. My fellow chaplain commented, “Meet the poor cousin of Lourdes.” In terms of popularity, this shrine is a pale shadow of the other Marian shrine. Perhaps, the reason for this could be that this mountainous sanctuary is not easily accessible. The path ascending to the top was narrow and winding, the journey long and strenuous. I cannot even imagine how the early pilgrims would have made the track up the hill on their feet, and here we are complaining about our moderately turbulent bus ride.

When I first caught sight of the mountainous scenery, I almost burst into the first verse of that theme song from the 1965 film, The Sound of Music.

Climb every mountain,

Search high and low,

Follow every byway,

Every path you know.

Do you remember when the young Maria came into view over the hills with the mountains framing the background and the meadow abundant with spring flowers? As she ran forward effortlessly, filled with life and freshness, singing with a full voice and without laboured breathing, none of the debilitating effects of high altitude, mountain climbing looked like an easy goal. But we know better! I was already panting when I had to walk a few steps. Mountain climbing is hard work.

The path to sainthood, which is our pilgrimage of life, can be compared to climbing a mountain. The final goal is to reach the summit and to get there one must choose a path. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once taught, “The goal of every pilgrimage is the city of ‘solid foundations’, whose architect and builder is ‘God’: a goal that is not of this world, but of ‘heaven’.” Every pilgrimage, therefore, has a beginning and an end and the desired end of our earthly pilgrimage is the perfection of charity or heaven, the city where the saints dwell. To arrive at our destination we must choose a path. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The way of Christ ‘leads to life’; a contrary way ‘leads to destruction.” (CCC #1696) The Beatitudes that we’ve just read in the gospel speaks of this path – the way of Christ that leads to life.

The lives of the saints remind us that the journey to sainthood is never one which is smooth and trouble free. All would have experienced severe trials, setbacks, failures, struggles with their own limitations as they struggled to continue the upward climb. St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Augustine, lest we forget, all had colourful pasts: denying Christ, persecuting His followers, and embracing a hedonistic lifestyle. All needed to keep the summit constantly in view as the temptation to turn back and to go down the mountain is great. In our spiritual journey we all descend into the valleys and climb back up the slopes of the mountains. Sometimes we slip or fall back, get hurt, or need to re-evaluate the path we are on. These are ebbs and flows in the spiritual life which provide us with the skills that we need to progress on our journey.

Ultimately the “path” entails conversion, repeated conversion, a process of conversion. For you to grow in holiness and be a saint, you don’t need to do extraordinary things. You need only to focus on continuous conversion, the nitty-gritty practice of daily avoiding sins, growing in virtue, living out the beatitudes, being fervent in prayer, and growing in intimacy with the God who loves you. Everyone, therefore, is called to ongoing conversion in his or her own “path.” St. Bernard once said that no matter how sinful one might have been in the past, he is still called to the heights of prayer—to the depths of the riches of the spiritual life. Our process of conversion to Christ is a journey that takes place over the course of a lifetime. You can probably look back to times in your life where you can remember making great progress on your spiritual journey, and other times when you have felt like you were moving backwards. Union with God always requires a process, often painful, that must pave the way for that union. For, if a box is filled with sand, it cannot be filled with gold dust. The sand must be removed, the vessel emptied and cleaned, and then there is room for the Gold of God’s presence.

But the saints also remind us that in order to conquer the heights of that mountain of perfection, it is not only through sheer effort and determination. There is the power of grace. The beatitudes captures this beautifully. Such blessedness is not manufactured or imagined, it comes from one’s total dependence on God’s grace, goodness and providence. The situations or scenarios described in the Beatitudes places the disciple in an uncomfortable, awkward and vulnerable situation, where he is unable to rely on his own personal strength or resources. In such desperate situation, he ultimately comes to recognise that his only recourse is in God. This is what St Therese de Lisieux, the Little Flower, meant by her little “shortcut” to holiness. “We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb laboriously up flights of stairs; in well-to-do houses there are lifts. And I was determined to find a lift to carry me to Jesus, for I was far too small to climb the steep stairs of perfection. So I sought in Holy Scripture some idea of what this life I wanted would be, and I read these words: “Whosoever is a little one, come to me.” It is your arms, Jesus, that are the lift to carry me to heaven. And so there is no need for me to grow up: I must stay little and become less and less.”

When mountain climbers are at the base of a mountain looking up at the top, they have an experience of the mountain’s beauty, but when they actually arrive at the top and look around, the scenery spread before them is exhilarating and far beyond anything they could have imagined previously. All the trials, struggles, and difficulties of the climb are forgotten as they bask in the grandeur of what they now experience. They will go back down the mountain and when they look up again it will be with new eyes, for what they have witnessed will have changed their perspective. They will never view the mountain the same again. The saints provide us with a similar vision. Listening to their stories, having seen what they’ve seen, heard what they’ve heard, lived how they lived, life will never be the same again. The saints are a constant source of encouragement that nothing is impossible with the grace of God, even for a sinner like me. Such an experience is a foretaste of what the Lord has in store for us at the end of life’s journey. We cannot begin to even imagine what this will be.

Let us give thanks to God for the saints and turn to them in prayer to assist us on our journey as we strive to reach the perfection of charity!

Climb every mountain,

Search high and low,

Follow every byway,

Every path you know.