Backpacking The first day of our wilderness backpacking journey began with Mass at 5:30 a.m. Our makeshift altar was a picnic table, but future Masses would be celebrated on rocks. I felt cheerful as I helped four brothers wash their hands using a special water bag and soap bottle that only clean hands could touch. We had been advised to each pair with a buddy who would clean our hands. “Today, I’m everybody’s buddy,” I said lightly as I cleaned their hands. Soon, we were ready for Mass. The Psalm and Epistle of James cried out for detachment. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” the antiphon for the Psalm kept repeating. The abundance of the wealthy would not follow them when they died and the ground became their “palace.” I could see that the Lord was teaching us, giving us a more tangible experience of poverty than our little penances at home. The readings were striking, given our training on packing lightly and even carrying our own human waste with us on the trail in special, NASAapproved “wag bags,” preserving the desert’s cleanliness from the thousands of visitors passing through annually. These wag bags would become quite stinky in the days ahead! After Mass, I packed my backpack with belongings I would need for the week. Once filled, each backpack weighed 40-60 pounds, a quarter of my body weight. Brother Eliott had experience camping with Boy Scouts. He said, “You’ll feel it.” And I did! Descent The weather was very favorable, cool and overcast. We descended along a rock and dirt path to the canyon floor. The descent was 1,300 feet. We made it to the river by nightfall and staggered into our campsite only to have to raise tents, cook supper, and clean up in the dark, using headlamps. Some people were so exhausted that they just wanted to fall into bed without making supper. This would have interfered with rationing and created health risks the next day because of their high calorie burn, so group leaders had to press them to make supper and eat it. The challenge for the more athletically-fit among us was, first, overcoming our impatience to go further faster, and second, taking responsibility for our brothers and doing more work than we wanted to at the end of the day. The Lord told us through a reading from the Liturgy of the Hours that we should make our varying gifts available, serving to one another. This was a key time for putting that into practice. The environment was testing us in new ways. Ascent When the backpacking section of the trip ended, we had to climb up 1,300 feet out of the canyon. We started the day while the sky was still dark, and after praying Morning Prayer and eating breakfast, we quickly broke camp and made our way to the base of the cliff. Those of us who were physically stronger carried some of the backpack contents for our brothers who weren’t as fit, as well as general community goods such as sacks of drinking water. I felt grateful that our brothers who weren’t very athletic had the humility to let others carry some of their belongings, because if they hadn’t, they could have become exhausted on the cliff, crippling our whole group’s attempt to ascend the slope. Their humility allowed us to effectively work together and make surprisingly good time. As we ascended between boulders and across red rock and dirt, the canyon walls and cliff faces spread out before our eyes, providing increasingly spectacular vistas. Sometimes, footing was loose and rocks gave way underfoot, so we warned one another about treacherous areas. We reached the top ahead of schedule. Stars and a snake We slept outdoors, under the stars, for the remaining nights of our trip. I had rarely seen so many stars during my various travels in my life, and found the spectacle glorious. We spent the next day climbing another rock face, held secure by ropes and our companions. Brother Michael impressed me, for after failing to reach the top of the rock face after a difficult climb, he tried again later, and despite being exhausted, he made it all the way to the top on his Daily Mass was celebrated outdoors by Fr. Thaddaeus Lancton, MIC, director of the Marian House of Studies in Steubenville, Ohio. Marian Helper • Fall 2024 • Marian.org 15 Continued on page 16
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==