To The Mountaintop - Feast of All Saints

To the Mountaintop - Feast of All Saints

"When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain....He began to teach them."

Ascending the mountain has always been a metaphor for the spiritual life and achieving holiness.  From a physical point of view, the mountain makes us closer to God, if we imagine heaven in a higher realm.  In addition, being on the mountain looking down below we achieve the vision of God and what that might mean for our lives and our world.  These spiritual images help us to continually move closer to God and to seek always to acquire God's vision of the world.

In the Old Testament God spoke to Moses on the mountain and gave him the ten commandments.  Upon another mountain God showed Moses the Promised Land, but then said Moses would not live to see it.  The ten commandments, important as they are, cannot lead us ultimately to the Promised Land.  More is required.  Jesus gives us what is necessary when he goes to the mountain to provide us the eight beatitudes.  These maxims are a challenge.  We are to be poor in spirit; meek; hunger and thirst for righteousness; merciful; clean of heart; peacemakers; and persecuted for righteousness.  These are what we find on the mountaintop.  These are the way to the Promised Land.

In the liturgies of Eastern Christianity, the beatitudes are recited every time the Eucharist is celebrated.  Imagine if that became part of our liturgical practice.  Imagine too if we actually appropriated these beatitudes in our own lives.  The beatitudes are what we discover on the mountaintop.  The beatitudes are God's vision for our world.  Practicing them brings us closer to God, and closer to the realization of the reign of God.