The state of Colorado (United States) is home to 54 “14ers” (fourteeners or fourteen thousand, in Spanish), mountain peaks that are at least 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) above sea level. The difficulty of these summits ranges from easy to what many would consider dangerous. Many Coloradans have completed at least one 14erbut Father John Nepil, vice chancellor and professor of theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in the Archdiocese of Denver, is one of the few who can say he has reached the summit of all 54 peaks, not once but twice. .
Father Nepil made his first 14er when he was in seventh grade and he hated it. However, shortly after, “something woke up in me and I fell in love, and I’ve been climbing them ever since,” he said in an interview with CNA, EWTN News’ English agency.
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When Fr. Nepil was 20 years old, he completed the 54 14ers for the first time. Last year, on the feast of the Guardian Angels, at the top of the Mount of the Holy Cross, he completed the 54 for the second time, this time as a priest and with the celebration of Mass at the top of each peak.
The first Mass he celebrated on a 14er It was a week after his ordination, in May 2011. Now, after 13 years, he can say that he has celebrated Mass in all 14ers of the state.
“Celebrate Mass on the top of the 14ers “It is probably the greatest gift and privilege of my entire life,” he said. “I don’t think there is anything I have desired more than this and that has awakened my inner self more deeply. It is simply the summit of my priestly life.”
“Then, of course, being a priest and being a spiritual pastor and guide,” he added, “helping people physically ascend to the heights and doing it in a way that guides them to the spiritual heights in Christ, that to me is what “It has made priestly life so deeply meaningful and impactful.”
Another aspect that Father Nepil addressed was how taking people on walks serves as an opportunity for fellowship and evangelization.
Father Nepil shared that when he was a newly ordained priest, he was assigned as a chaplain at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He quickly realized that there were “many excellent students there, but many of their friends did not feel comfortable coming to Mass and did not want to have anything to do with the Church.”
He decided to create an outdoor club called Aquinas Alpine and began taking people on “adventures in the mountains, and that’s where it really became a ministry life,” he said.
“You just hang out with people in the mountains and all the questions start to arise naturally and relationships form. “It is an incredible environment to facilitate communion, but also for conversion.”
In his work now at the seminary, Father Nepil shared how he constantly encourages men to “do hard things together.”
“Our world is built right now to eliminate discomfort, and that’s really bad for our humanity,” he said. “As human beings, we need to live with intention. We need to be challenged. Muscles need to be destroyed in order to be rebuilt. It’s the same with relationships: if we just float on the surface and live comfortably, we are never really growing and the relationships are not getting stronger.”
“So we have to actively go into the countryside and embrace a pre-industrial, non-technological kind of life to reclaim our humanity, and when we do it together, we authenticate our relationships and deepen them into the reality of who we are as created beings.”
As for what people who hike with him take away from the experience, he said he hopes it’s that they have a “qualitatively different experience of the relationship.”
“As things slow down, they crystallize, perception sharpens and that awakens spiritual questions and, hopefully, a spiritual vision begins to form to interpret reality,” he said. “We are made to interpret. Things have meaning… but we only find true happiness and fulfillment as people when we interpret the self and experiences of our lives as meaningful, and I think the conditions of being in creation on a backcountry adventure really facilitate that in a way. deep.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Francesca Pollio Fenton
Francesca Pollio Fenton is the Social Media Manager at Catholic News Agency. He received his bachelor’s degree in Communications with an emphasis in Digital Media from the University of Colorado, Denver (United States).