During a commemorative ceremony in which Mallory and her valiant companions were remembered, the speaker expresses and sums up the spirit and sentiments of that assembly. Looking out the window, he went to Everest saying:
Everest! I speak to you in the name of all brave men. You have defeated us not once, not twice, but many times. However, one day, we will be the ones to win, because you cannot grow more than you are; We can...
Mountain attraction
The mountain has always exerted an attraction on Man because it challenges his courage, his spirit of adventure, creativity, strength and resistance.
The mountain is the highest point on earth and, at the same time, the lowest point in heaven. It is the place where heaven and earth touch; where Man ascends to God and God descends to Man. This implies, on God's part, a kenosis, a debasement whose culmination was the incarnation of his Son. On the part of the human being, it implies an ascent, an overcoming of nature fallen by sin, towards new life in Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The Ziggurat
The first temples of ancient Mesopotamia, called ziggurats, were built in a helical shape, like spiral staircases. This structure was not accidental, but rather an architectural symbol of the spiritual path that every human being is called to follow if he wishes to be united to God.
St. John of the Cross, in his book The Ascent to Mount Carmel, interprets this ascent as a journey of purification and self-transcendence. The author invites us to abandon everything that is an obstacle to union with God — goods, affections, desires — in order to reach the summit of spiritual life.
Saint Teresa of Avila, companion of John of the Cross and reformer of Carmel, proposes a similar path in her work The Interior Castle. It uses the image of a castle with concentric walls, where the spiritual journey is made towards the most intimate center of ourselves, where God dwells. As St. Augustine said: "Deus intimior intimo meo" — God is more intimate to me than I am to myself.
This idea of spiritual progress, self-overcoming and purification also appears in the work of Dante Alighieri. In the Divine Comedy, Purgatory is represented precisely as a ziggurat, a mountain that gradually rises to Paradise.
The Mountains of the Bible
Mount Hermon - (or "holy mountain") is the highest mountain in ancient Israel, peaking with snow until June, when it rises 2,814 meters above sea level. Some scholars believe that Mount Hermon was the site of Jesus' transfiguration, a supernatural event in which Christ appeared in His true glory as the Son of God, revealing His identity as the Messiah and fulfilling the law and prophets (Matthew 17:1–8).
If this was not the case, it was at the foot of this mountain, where the Jordan River opens the Rift Valley, which extends to the Red Sea, in Ethiopia, to the Indian Ocean, in Mozambique, that the apostles discovered the identity of Jesus of Nazareth as the messiah who was to come, the son of God.
On Mount Moriah – Abraham's faith is put to the test when God asks him to sacrifice his son Isaac. By overcoming this test, Abraham becomes our father in the Faith learning that God must love him above all things and all people.
On Mount Sinai – Moses receives from God the Ten Commandments that constituted at the time an educational pedagogy to constitute the Jews in the People of God with an idiosyncrasy of their own.
On Mount Carmel – The prophet Elijah challenges and exposes those who have abandoned the true faith in a God who made them free to underlie a countless number of idols that enslave. Today idolaters pretend to be atheists or agnostics, but if we look at their daily lives, we see that they have little idols that they worship and around which they orbit.
On Mount Nebo – Moses sees the promised land without entering it. Martin Luther King said the day before his assassination, "You have granted me to see the promised land, it is possible that I will not enter it with you, but I am sure that we as a people will one day enter the promised land. The dream of a more just and fraternal world, the Rhine of God, must always inspire the struggle of our daily lives.
On the Mount of Beatitudes – On this mountain, Jesus, the new Moses, proclaims his Sermon on the Mount, proposing the Beatitudes as the only and urgent path to true happiness. This mountain is the new Sinai of the New Testament.
On the Mount of Transfiguration - There, Jesus revealed his divine identity to the disciples, preparing them for the trial of his Passion. This mountain is, therefore, the new Mount Nebo of the New Testament: a foretaste of glory before the painful crossing of suffering.
On the Mount of Calvary – Jesus finds his death paying the price for having been who he was and lived as he lived. For a moment injustice seemed to have the last word, but Jesus rose again, making justice triumph over injustice, grace over sin. The resurrection of Jesus led the Church to understand the salvific value of His death. Calvary is the new Mount Moriah: there the Father offered his beloved Son for the salvation of all. There Jesus was tested like Abraham on Mount Moriah.
On the Mount of the Ascension – Christ ends his earthly mission and ascends to Heaven, taking our humanity with him. The angel who appears exhorts the Apostles to come down from the mountain and take the Gospel to every corner of the earth. This is the new Mount Carmel: after contemplation, mission follows. Not a violent mission like that of Elijah imposing the truth, but a peaceful mission proposing the truth.
Conclusion - The Bible is marked by a spiritual geography where each mountain speaks to us of a step in the history of salvation — and in our own inner journey. To climb the mountain is to accept the challenge of faith, purification and surrender. But no summit is an end in itself: each mountain points to Heaven, but also to the mission below.
Like Abraham, Moses, Elijah and Jesus, we are called to ascend — not to flee from the world, but to see from another perspective and then to descend transformed, bringing to others the light, hope and promise that we have received from above.
The spell-binding attraction that mountains exert on us and the surreptitious call that urges us to climb them must correspond to a desire for growth, for overcoming of oneself at every level.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC