A happy and blessed feast Day of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother. Because of the prevenient grace of her Immaculate Conception, God lifted Our Lady up to heaven at the moment of her death. She who fed God at her breast now dines with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit at the eternal banquet of grace.
Yesterday I returned with two friends from 19 days in the wilderness, where one has to carefully ration one’s food. In fact, we ran out of food towards the end, but God provided a kindly forest service ranger and three generous Indian hikers who resupplied us.
We had hiked the John Muir Trail, from Yosemite to Mount Whitney, 200 miles and 47,000 feet of elevation gain. We spent almost three weeks climbing through rockfalls and blasted trees from avalanches, fording ice-cold rivers and digging for footholds over steep snowbound passes, enduring electrical storms with sleet and rain, and (worst of all!) unusually large clouds of relentless mosquitos. Snow covered the trail in many places, making it hard to find the trail on the other side, and one of us got lost for a day. Thanks be to God, he found his way back to the main trail as a search and rescue was beginning, and the Fellowship continued its journey. We reached the highest point in our country south of Alaska on Sunday morning and offered a Mass of thanksgiving in the emergency shelter as freezing wind and fog lashed the summit. How hard it is even to reach 14,505 feet on this planet. But God lifted Our Lady up into the highest heavens today by a perfectly simple gesture of grace. How good He is.
Yesterday I thought of food as I emptied my exhausted backpack. Only a dirty plastic bag with a dozen stale almonds remained of all the food we had carried over three weeks. I tossed the sour nuts into the garbage. The scraps of food we treasured on the trail were now contemptible to me. Back at home, who would attempt to choke down the pitifully-desiccated food we had treasured on the trail? I found a small bag of freeze-dried stroganov that had not made it into my pack. I would have given anything for that little bag of dried food in the wilderness, but now it seemed dirty and disgusting.
Our Lady has made it to the summit of perfection, by God’s grace. She lived on earthly food while on pilgrimage, but in heaven things so treasured on earth must seem utterly contemptible. We eat, with joy, the food God gives us on earth, but we eagerly anticipate another kind of food in the life of the world to come. Even the Holy Eucharist itself is only a poor foretaste of what God has prepared for those who love Him. We are all pilgrims in the wilderness, desperately rationing scraps of nourishment. But someday, like Our Lady, we will come into our true home, and take our seats at the wedding feast of the Lamb.
From Father Illo’s blog Father Illo is pastor of Star of the Sea in San Francisco.
Since mosquitoes mean water, they’re actually a good sign here.
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus.html
I’m sorry, he didn’t gain 47,000 feet in elevation, as he claimed; he gained 10,000 feet from the trailhead to the summit.
It’s dishonest to state the aggregate elevation gain or ascent without mentioning or subtracting the aggregate elevation loss or descent.
Hiking stories are as skepticism-inducing as fish stories.
I’m surprised that Father Illo would refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as a poor foretaste, making an analogy to stale, sour, contemptible, dirty & disgusting scraps. Perhaps I misunderstand the point he is trying to make. I would think that the experience would make him more appreciative of the small things, instead he seems bitter and unappreciative of the sustenance we are given for our journey.
YFC, that actually is a very good point.
When we are in Heaven, we will be grateful for the Eucharist.
YFC, on the Feast of St. Nicholas in 1273, St. Thomas Aquinas received a powerful revelation while saying Mass, that caused him to cease work on his great “Summa Theologiae.” He never finished it. He told his secretary, “The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw, after the things that have been revealed to me.” Christ gave us His holy Church, the Holy Mass and Sacraments, to help us prepare for our true life with Him– Eternal Life, in Heaven. When He comes for us again, at the Second Coming, the need for His holy Church, the holy Mass and Sacraments, will have been fulfilled. What has been revealed briefly to us in St. John’s mystical “Revelations,” is fantastic. And all true. Can you imagine what all of that will be like, someday? Our present sad condition, on earth, separated from Christ, is tragic– a result of sin and ignorance. What true followers of Christ have to look forward to someday, is absolutely wondrous, exquisitely beautiful, far beyond anything we can ever possibly imagine. You are right. The Holy Eucharist, properly received, is an exquisitely beautiful foretaste of Heaven– for which we shall all be deeply grateful, when we leave this earth, and (hopefully) are in Heaven, some day.
Yes, you misunderstand his point.
Yes, some people took what he said too literally. All he meant was that the Holy Eucharist is only a foretaste of what heaven will be like. The Lord said it is unimaginable to us on earth. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard……..”