3 lessons from the mountaintop

Mountains rise out of the earth like Jesus’s resurrection from the tomb, and they figure prominently in our faith. Abraham takes Isaac up Mount Moriah. Moses receives the law on Mount Sinai, and Jesus delivers the new law at the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is transfigured on Mount Tabor, and he prays on the Mount of Olives before ascending Mount Calvary where he’s crucified upon the highest point in salvation history.

Heaven and earth converge at the mountaintop, which led avid mountaineer and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati to proclaim, “The higher we go, the better we shall hear the voice of Christ.”

Heaven and earth converge at the mountaintop, which led avid mountaineer and Servant of God Pier Giorgio Frassati to proclaim, “The higher we go, the better we shall hear the voice of Christ.”

I have experienced this improved hearing when hiking three of Waterton’s Front Range Six because each peak taught a spiritual lesson.

Lesson One: Preparation Matters

When I accepted the invitation to hike Bertha Peak, I was not fit enough to ascend twelve hundred meters on a 15 km out-and-back trail. I hate being embarrassed more than I hate working out, so I started getting up early and doing a high intensity workout in my basement consisting of thousands of squats and lunges to get my legs, heart, and lungs ready for stairclimbing at high altitude. I then followed my workout with a 40-minute walk with my wife before biking to work.

The spiritual parallel is that I also needed to build a routine of prayer and spiritual reading and do it every day (even when I didn’t feel like it). When I started the permanent diaconate program, I did not have prayer routine, but St. Paul tells us to pray unceasingly and give thanks in all circumstances. This takes discipline and practice, and prayer became part of my morning workout. 

The liturgical calendar exemplifies the need for preparation beautifully. Advent and Lent provide sacred times to make way for the Lord’s presence at Christmas and Easter. The mountaintop experience (like Christmas morning) is short-lived, but the weeks of preparation are essential to experiencing the fullness of incarnational joy throughout the year. Daily prayer, even when it’s dry and boring (perhaps especially when it’s dry and boring) tunes us in to God’s frequency.  

Lesson Two: It’s Easy to Get into Trouble  

Mt. Galwey was a relentless, 7-hour battle against gravity that mirrored the truism, “There is no plateau in the spiritual life.” You are either climbing or losing momentum. The Front Range Six are not technically climbs, but scrambles. Erosion creates scree, a collection of broken rocks that can become slippery and dangerous. On the way up, a dislodged piece of shale can quickly turn into a deadly projectile (helmets are recommended). On the way down, I slipped on a slab of dust covered shale and gashed my hip. It was an ordinary step, like the countless other steps I had taken that day.  
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As I scramble towards God, the most dangerous hazards I face are the simple ones, the spiritual equivalent of a sprained ankle. My pride makes it easy to step into sin, and the step that puts my soul in danger will look and feel like every other step I have taken successfully because the devil uses my overconfidence against me.

Lesson Three: God is in the Fog  

It rained hard the day before we climbed Vimy Peak. To get to the trailhead, we biked six and a half kilometers, and our bikes got so caked with mud we had to push them the last half kilometer. We then climbed 7.5 km up a muddy and slippery trail. Near the final ascent, the temperature dropped to 5 degrees with 80km winds and no visibility. The view from the peak was a dense grey fog.

[The] reward is not up to me. My job is to put in the work, ascend towards him, and accept what he offers." 

This could have been my peak of disappointment, but God revealed to me what he wanted me to see: the reward is not up to me. My job is to put in the work, ascend towards him, and accept what he offers. 

​At the foggy peak, I remembered a question from Rabbi Harold Kushner’s The Lord is My Shepherd: Do you love me because I am God and give you everything you want, or do you love me because I am God?
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My routine of daily prayer enabled me to receive this message about humility and recognize how often I superimpose my desire on God’s plan.

Much of what I see depends upon what I am looking for. If I want to find reasons to doubt God or be angry with the Church, I don’t have to look very hard. But if I trust that God’s love means that he always has something to teach me, I will find that too, not because I am naïve, but because he promised, “Seek and you shall find.”

​I sought Him in the mountains, and He was there (but He was with me in the basement, too).

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Written by Jason Openo for Faithfully. Jason is a permanent diaconate candidate who attends St. Patrick's Parish with his family in Medicine Hat. ​

​Photos courtesy of Jason Openo.