Third Sunday of Advent: Journeys (Verso l'Alto)

During these Sundays in Advent, I am posting a series called Journeys, personal reflections on the season of Advent presented in four parts – Readiness in Memory and Hope, Setting Forth, Verso l’Alto, and The Return. Join me in following in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary as they traveled to Bethlehem and the Wise Men as they followed the star, and let’s reflect on this journey we call life.

This past summer I climbed a mountain.

I was in Breckenridge, Colorado with three friends. On Day One, after a full day of air travel, we arrived to our cabin late at night under an almost full moon; on Day Two, when we realized that just walking upstairs made it difficult to breathe, we leisurely explored the downtown area to allow our bodies time to acclimate to the high altitude; but on Day Three, dressed in layers and carrying backpacks, we stood at the beginning of a 3.4 mile hiking trail that went straight up a mountain to Mohawk Lake.

Over dirt trails, rocky crevices, and overgrown roots we climbed up and up. We crossed streams, walked through meadows, and climbed over logs. We passed other hikers going up and said hello to hikers going back down. We made a wrong turn, which turned our 3.2 miles of going up into 4.2 miles of going up. We were tired. Sometimes it hurt to breathe. We laughed, we encouraged each other, we stopped to take in the breathtaking views. During the last mile, the trail turned rocky, the ascent became even steeper, and we weren’t so much hiking as looking for footholds and pulling ourselves up and over large boulders.

Then, after almost four hours of hiking and climbing, after four hours of not being able to see the peak but nevertheless continuing because we knew it was there, after all that time of looking upward as we climbed, we arrived. Finally. And the feeling was indescribable.

There was exuberance, yes, and certainly a feeling of accomplishment. But mostly I felt humbled to have worked, and struggled, and climbed, and sweated in order to finally arrive exactly where we had been heading. And as I caught my breath and drank in the view, I thought of a prayer card I had with a photo of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati climbing a mountain with the words, Verso l’Alto, written in the corner.   

These Italian words were scribbled onto a photograph in 1925 by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, and they have become representative of his earthly life – that is, of constantly striving to reach the summit of eternal life. Translated literally, verso is a preposition meaning towards – not in action, but in orientation – as in, what are we heading towards? Alto, on the other hand, is a noun meaning height. So while the words Verso l’Alto mean towards the height, Pier Giorgio Frassati showed us that they don’t so much refer to the physical act of climbing as what we are doing while climbing; in other words, they refer to the Christian’s spiritual journey – and all we do while on that journey – as we strive to reach the height of heaven.

So, as I stood on the shores of Mohawk Lake on top of that mountain, as I breathed in the crisp mountain air and delighted in the indescribable beauty, I also felt restlessness – a longing for more. I remembered how Carl Frederick Buechner, in his book Listening to Your Life, said that the unease (or incompleteness) we may feel is the sound God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. And that’s why I felt humbled because I knew there are more mountains to scale, for God is forever calling us to him and in our spiritual journey one can move forward or backward, but one cannot stand still.

We are meant to be heading somewhere; we are meant to strive, and climb, and struggle. We will have moments of rest, but when we rise we will, like the Wise Men following that star, look up and continue climbing …

Verso l’Alto.