By Father Casey

The year after I graduated from college, I set out to hike the Appalachian Trail. The AT, as it is called, is the 2,200 mile continuous trail from Georgia to Maine. Every year, thousands seek to “thru-hike” the entire length in one long effort, and that year, I decided this was just the adventure I needed between college and the start of law school (law school…that’s a different story).

So, in March of 2001, I loaded up my backpack with all my brand new gear, and my mother drove me from Texas to Georgia. We arrived at Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the trail, on a cold, misty morning, where I stepped out of the car and began my two and a half months along this famous mountain path. It was a magnificent blend of adventure, struggle, joy, and suffering. When I left the trail around the halfway mark (1,100 miles in), I was sure I would return to finish, but 20 years later that goal feels a bit more out of reach. Yet, I thank God for every mile I hiked, and for the multitude of experiences that shaped me deeply.

The most familiar symbol of the AT is the white blaze. It is a 6-inch long white stripe that marks the path and shows you where to go. It is estimated that there are 165,000 blazes along the trail, with the great majority painted on trees, but some appearing on boulders, roads, and lookout towers. A single blaze is a sign that you’re headed the right way; keep on keeping on. A “double blaze” warns you to pay attention; be ready to turn. Typically they are painted at eye-level, but sometimes they are located higher up to be even more visible from a distance.

I can’t begin to describe how reassuring those blazes can be. It would seem like a hiking path should be obvious enough to follow, yet there are plenty of sections where the path is faded or obscured, and you can easily lose your way. Fallen leaves pile up in the fall and winter, rain transforms it into a muddy mess, and snow can completely hide the path, if you’re the first one out after a storm. I lost my way on more than one occasion, and wandered for hundreds of yards before spotting that desperately sought white mark. They came to feel like friends, showing me the way to safety, helping me get where I needed to go, beckoning me onward to my destination. If only there were blazes marking our way in the rest of life.

Well, in a sense, God has given us blazes us to follow. They are called saints. They came before us and navigated a good and godly path through life. They figured out where to go, and left their mark in the world in such a way that those who came after them would know the way. They reached the destination ahead of us, which means we can trace their journey to arrive at that same good place.

This weekend we celebrate all the saints – those whose righteousness has been so remarkable that the Church has recognized them as especially holy examples, and those who may not be written about in books, yet whose love and faith has made a deeply personal impact on us. Both have been like blazes to us, reminding us where to go, revealing right pathways, showing us the way to God. They have been God’s markers to us through the mountains and woods, and if you’re anything like me, when you’ve wandered off the path, their example, prayers, and love have made all the difference.

I hope you’ll join me this weekend in thanking God for all those saintly blazes. And I hope you’ll pray for the grace to be a blaze in your own right. For the world is filled with lost hikers, people who need a bit of help finding their way back to the trail, people who are desperate for the peace and confidence that comes from being on the right path. We can be saints to them. We can, by our words and witness, show them the way. We can love and lead them, just as the saints before us loved and led us.

And together, all of us, we can reach that far mountain, where the Lord is ready to welcome us home.