How desperately our souls need to climb above this present evil world to something nobler and better! The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches are choking everything good within us. We grow fretful, despondent, perhaps proud and carnal. These thorns and briars must be cut down—for heavenly seed sown among thorns will never yield a harvest! And where will you find a sharper sickle to cut them down than communion with God and the things of his kingdom?

In the valleys of Switzerland, many of the people are deformed and sickly. The air hangs heavy with disease—close, stagnant, poisonous. But climb the mountain! Up there you find a hardy race who breathe the pure air flowing down from virgin snow. If only the valley dwellers would leave their swamps and fever mists more often and fill their lungs with that bracing mountain air!

That is exactly the climb I invite you to this evening. May the Spirit of God help us leave behind the mists of fear and the fevers of anxiety—all the diseases that gather in this valley of earth—and ascend the mountains of anticipated joy and blessedness!

May God the Holy Spirit cut the cords that keep us here below and assist us to mount! Too often we sit like chained eagles fastened to the rock. But here's the tragedy: unlike the eagle, we begin to love our chains. If it came to the test, we might be loath to have them snapped.

May God grant us grace! If we cannot escape these chains in our flesh, let us do so in our spirits. Leave the body like a servant at the foot of the hill, while our souls, like Abraham, attain the top of the mountain—there to indulge in communion with the Most High!