If you have ever been hiking in the mountains, you'll know what a false summit is: when you reach a peak that appeared to be the pinnacle of the mountain but see that the true summit is even higher. False summits can cause hikers to give up, despairing of ever reaching their goal.
This experience happens to us in our own lives, and it happens to Saint Peter in the Gospel today. We can get to the top of a summit and be so excited that we forget that the true summit still lies beyond us—in Heaven. But if we learn to look at the false summits as signs of the peak, we can actually regain strength in those moments, because we remember where our life is ultimately headed.
Up Next in Opening the Word
-
3rd Sunday of Lent—March 4, 2018
Today's readings are the midway point in our Lenten journey, focusing on the relationship between God's laws and the state of man's heart. The First Reading begins with words many of us have heard frequently throughout our lives—the Ten Commandments. Before giving all of the Commandments, God pro...
-
1st Sunday of Lent—March 10, 2019
We begin our Lenten readings in a most appropriate place: the desert. In the desert, life is stripped to basics and everything, including our weakness, is exposed. We are forced to stand alone and vulnerable before God. Our faith is put to the test. Little wonder, then, that Jesus went to the des...
-
2nd Sunday of Lent—March 17, 2019
What an amazing experience it must have been for Peter, James and John to witness an event few humans can imagine – the glory of Jesus! And yet we experience a similar miracle at every Mass as the glory of Jesus is shown to us in the Eucharist. The three Apostles didn't take their experience for ...
6 Comments