Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King, which is the last Sunday of Ordinary time. Next Sunday we put away the green-covered liturgy of the hours and pick up the blue-covered one, as Advent begins.
It was about this time last year that the experience of my profound conversion of heart began -- I had a sense that the approaching Advent was truly an Advent for me.
I have learned much in the last year, but I do not feel the process of handing my soul over to the King is by any means complete. You do not make up for forty years of neglect in a year. I complete this year still dissatisfied with myself, and still filled with a profound sense of unworthiness that such a King would call upon me. He is leading me to a greater purity and strength of heart, but He is doing so patiently and gently. I think He does so because a swifter approach to him might well kill me.
Psalm 24 asks the question which always moves me profoundly when I read it:
Who may go up the mountain of the LORD? Who can stand in his holy place?The clean of hand and pure of heart, who are not devoted to idols, who have not sworn falsely. They will receive blessings from the LORD, and justice from their saving God.
Climbing the mountain of the Lord is not accomplished in a day; the mountain does not seem so large when seen from a distance, when a person considers idly, "Why don't I try practicing my faith more?" on a November afternoon. It is as foolish a question as saying, from the middle-aged comfort of an armchair, "Let's climb Everest." But consider making that statement to someone you dare not disappoint -- a great king, or a dying child, perhaps -- and suddenly you are immersed in the practical details of a dangerous expedition.
And as you approach the mountain and you see that it is immense beyond understanding, a great and towering rock, wreathed in smoke and clouds, and you consider that the journey might have been unwise. You know to scale its heights will require skill and fitness you do not possess. You see right away that you cannot scale it directly. You also see a road that can carry you up, perhaps halfway. It is a gentle, well-paved road, an easy enough slope to begin with. And so you begin walking it. You put down some of your burdens along the way and leave them on the mountain, and the way becomes easier. You get a little bit more fit as you walk. You're able to go a little farther day to day. You learn techniques of getting around the places where the road is blocked, and learn how to find it again when it seems to disappear for a time.
You do this for a year, and you see how large the mountain really is. You see that the road up the mountain is really a road around the mountain, girdling it like a belt.
I've made something like one complete circle of the belt that is the road around the mountain of the Lord. I can see now again the place where I started in the valley a little below me. The mountain is tall -- perhaps five miles to the summit straight up, if this is Everest -- and I see that the first circuit of the road has carried me up a few hundred feet from the place where I started.
It's a little dismaying.
At any rate, we are back at the solemnity of Christ the King. It is a kind of spiritual base camp; when Advent starts we begin the climb again. Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter make quick progress in the soul; the thirty-four weeks of Ordinary time seem like a long, slow march in comparison; necessary to make us stronger and fitter for what lies ahead.
The Scripture reading from last night is from Ephesians, 1:20-23, from that fine mountaineer of the soul, St. Paul:
May the eyes of (your) hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
Not only in this age but the age to come. The road stretches on. How far? We do not know. We only know that the mountain is still in front of us, and we have not yet reached its peak.