Jeanne Frantik

Sept 2023 – Galilea – The Mount of the Beatitudes

On a bench, I sit and disappear in mind and spirit from the pilgrims walking the trail on the Mount of Beatitudes.  There was not a lot of time at this stop, but the Lord called me to be still and hear him like Elijah ‘in the whisper’.  I sat on the bench, my rosary and comfort cross in hand.  I leaned over and just breathed the air of this holy mountain.  The breeze was light and gentle, but enough to wisp my hair across my cheek as if it was the touch of God.  I heard in a whisper ‘this is where the law became love – just love and I will do everything else’.  This is where he changed everything.

Within the Beatitudes, the Lord is asking us to empty ourselves out… of all of our sorrow and weaknesses – to make ourselves poor.  When we are able to empty ourselves completely, he is able to outpour himself into us with the joy of the resurrection and new life.

When it came time to leave this magnificent place, my heart ached to take a piece of this moment physically home with me.  I took my rosary and comfort cross and rolled them through the dirt.  I just needed this place to come home with me. 

Through the grace of God, I am often able to place my mind and soul back in that perfect moment with the Lord on his holy mountain.

Creation is where I find my peace and my God.  You can regularly find me running or walking through trails.  The dirt trails where my feet can feel the perfect imperfections of the ground, in which we were formed.

When you go running after the leaves have fallen and they are higher than your ankles… the ground speaks to you in the crunching of every step.  It reminds you that there is beauty in death and new life is always around the corner.  That sound, the feeling and the sound of the leaves causes me to giggle like an eight-year-old child experiencing something for the first time.

Speaking of the first time, have you ever run through a forest after a fresh snowfall?  Before any other footsteps are formed, on a trail you may have hiked a hundred times that all of the sudden disappears in a blanket of snow.  It is there, but you might question a turn or two – and embrace the experience of a wrong turn.

It is amazing to see the footprints in the snow of the God’s creatures.  I love to create messages in the snow and wonder who will wander upon them.  An when the field is just right, I fall into a snow angel without a care in the world. 

The purest of white, the spray of the powder, the crispness of the air... it is exhilarating and worth every layer of clothing you may have to wear to withstand the temps, but it is HIS perfection waiting to be discovered.

In the spring, when you have seen enough death and the green begins to peek at you on the edges of the path, and then the leaves which fill in a valley.  Initially, the leaves look like teardrops, and on Holy Saturday, they cry out as the apostles and disciples would have been doing on the very first Holy Saturday.  To run though their valley of tears, I slow down to breath in the sorrow, and know that Easter is coming.

In the summer, there is so much to see, but so much disappears.  Throughout the fullness of the leaves, the death of the fallen trees disappears.  The clear view of the lake that you see every other season, is no longer there, because the trees are so full you have to be reminded that the clear blue lake is right down the path.  The sound of the crunching leaves is replaced with giggling children as they fish and picnic with their families.  The world is fully alive again.

Somedays, runs become walks because the burdens of life may become too heavy or they may stop completely because the tears begin to fall and the only thing I desire to do is breath in the Lord and raising my arms and trusting him to take the load.

And then there are the days, where there is nothing but joy all around.  Every turn is full of pure awe and wonder.  Knowing he formed every peak and valley, and that he knows every hidden corner in the shadows… and knowing that ‘it is all good’ (Gen 1:31).

He never fails to amaze me from sunrise to sunset, in the moonlight and the stars, from the birds to the fishes.  This is when and where God caresses my heart and reminds me that I was created by the same God who created all of the beautiful things.

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”  Job 12:7-10