What’s up on the mountain?

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II

Monday, Week X, Year II of Ordinary Time, 08 June 2020

1 Kings 17:7-16 <*(((>< + ><)))*> Matthew 5:1-12

Your words today Lord brought memories of childhood when I would always look up to the mountains, wondering what is up there or how wonderful it must be up there.

As I grew up, that fascination with the mountains remained until I had the chance to climb some of them and learned one very valuable lesson: it is so nice to be up on the mountain but always difficult.

One has to pour in a lot of planning and preparations, most of all, more sacrifices.

There is always that inverse proportionality when it can take so much efforts to ascend, always painstaking while every descent is always less than half the time and energy.

Most of all, every ascent to the mountain calls for trust, a great deal of trust in you, Lord, because anything can happen. In fact, one has to always expect the unexpected when ascending a mountain.

But rewards are so great and the feeling is always liberating and free.

Teach me, Lord, to be like your Prophet Elijah, to always dare to climb mountains, to rely on your providence for water to drink and food to eat because more than these is the nourishment you provide for the soul and being of anyone willing to come near you.

Like your disciples and the crowd who followed you, Jesus, bless me with courage and trust to follow you up every mountain, listening and following your teachings.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 5:1-4

How blessed indeed, O Lord, to be high up on the mountain with you for heaven is no longer that far, so reachable with you — especially when beside your holy Cross. Amen.