overlooking the greatest beauty

I wrote this when I was studying abroad in Rome during the Fall of 2008. The pictures were taken while I was hiking with the group in the northern-ish area of Italy.

A traveler goes and sees a mountain for the first time. Coming upon it he is brought to silence and awe. His mind ponders, “How did this piece of earth become so tall? How did God create something so beautiful?” For certain he will sit and watch, taking in every detail and line, beauty and color of the mountain. And once the traveler is sure that he has seen all aspects of the mountain and its beauty, the mountain will reveal more. It will say to its forests and its faces “Let us show the weary traveler our beauty” and all of the nature will work together and the mountain’s splendor will ring out like a song.



The patient man will surely see more.

There is a man who lives in the town at the foot of the mountain. He passes the mountain every day, but it is nothing but a mountain. In his younger days he played in its forests and climbed its faces, touching its beauty and discovering its secrets. But as it always happens, the boy grew up and the mountain became simply a part of everyday life. Its beauty was still there, its secrets are waiting, but now the man is busy; his mind is filled up. It is only a mountain and there is no time for things like that.

Time and familiarity make us forget what we know.

It is amazing how a person can live amidst greatness and overlook it. To be in the presence of something bold, something radical, something scandalous, and not look twice.

If a person only encounters miracles then are they still miraculous? If the extraordinary becomes the ordinary, then how will we live when we witness them? It is when we become “familiar” with the divine that we become forgetful of its divinity.

For it is that way with our faith. A God whose love for us is that of a scandal, a radical love that does not, will not, and could not ever make sense to us – a divine love. It is with this love that he sent his son – a perfect sacrifice – to die for us. It is with this bold love that he claims us as his own and constantly pines for us. And it is with this same radical love that he gives us the choice to turn away from his beauty and love living our lives rejecting him.

How often do we sit at mass and forget what we are partaking in. Like the man and the mountain we once could hear the secrets of Christ’s love, we were discovering and exploring Love’s endlessness. But then we became content with what we knew. We stopped going deeper, we became “familiar.” We were satisfied with our place and stayed where we were. We forgot how radical God’s Love was, the scandal of his sacrifice, the boldness of his hand, and the deepness of his heart. In our familiarity we became blind. Our faith – once a radical love story was now familiar. What a tragedy that something so great is reduced to that of habit.

The man who lives on the mountain saw the traveler gazing up. He did not understand the visitors wonder, and so he takes a second look. He remembers the mountain’s friendship and his beauty – realizing what he has overlooked so many years of his life. Silently he thanks the traveler for gazing because it took the awe of a visitor for the man to remember the reality.



Let us not wait for a visitor to push us to forget our familiarity and rediscover the radical.