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Hiking and Mountaineering Club
Vision Statement.
"The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes: 'He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows'", (CCC. 2015).
The Ave Maria University Men's Outdoors Club is a means to an end. Its end is the increased holiness of its members and of the participants in the activities it organizes. It will therefore do everything in its power to ensure, as its very first priority, that Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration and the prayer of the Rosary form a daily part of all the activities it organizes. The Eucharist, Vatican Council II tells us, is "the Source and Summit of the whole Christian Life" (cfr. Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 10). Pope John Paul II declared that the Eucharist was the Center of his every day. The Eucharist will therefore be the Source, Center and Summit of our every day, the Source from which all good flows, the Center around which all activity revolves, the Summit toward which all our efforts, thoughts and desires aspire. We are truly a "Eucharistic Community"; Eucharistic and Marian, because it is Mary, the Woman of the Eucharist (cfr. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Chapter Six), who teaches us how to love and receive the Eucharist and how to lead "eucharistic lives".
(The Camping Ritual attached herewith will also form part of our daily spiritual commitments during our Fall Break and Spring Break activities).
A certain spirit of hardship, sacrifice, poverty, austerity, penance, self-denial and simplicity of life will characterize the lifestyle of our activities. We will take great care to avoid excessive comfort and expense, because "The foxes have their dens and the birds of the air have their nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head" (Lk. 9, 58), because we know that our wealth and freedom depend not on having many things but on having few needs and because Christian poverty joyfully and generously lived, enables our souls more freely to fly to our Creator and Redeemer. (We therefore prefer where possible the purchase and subsequent good care of materials over the unnecessary expenditure of renting and contracting). Joyful adaptability is a sign of the true spirit of poverty. In other words, we will endeavor to overcome in a spirit of docile and generous submission to God's providential will and guidance those unexpected setbacks and adversities that will inevitably arise on the trips we organize, mortifying for love of the poor, chaste and obedient Christ the impulse of complaint, criticism and rebelliousness, joyfully conforming our will to the divine will in each moment and not seeking obsessively to control every eventuality. Concretely, this disposition will manifest itself in our continual mortification of the question "What are we doing next?". With Padre Pio of Pietralcina we leave the past to God's mercy and the future to his Providence, living the present moment in fidelity to his will as a unique and irreplaceable opportunity of sanctification.
The founding members of the Ave Maria University Men's Outdoors Club perceive, as St. Augustine did, that two Books are needed to know God: the Book of Sacred Scriptures and the Book of Creation, in which God's loving Hand is everywhere to be seen. In Scripture as in Creation, mountains have a particular importance and power. They reflect God's beauty and splendor in a unique way. As clearly expressed in the above quotation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they symbolize and signify the way of holiness as a battle and a climb, a way of combat and conquest toward a Summit upon which and from which reigns the greater glory of God. This vision has a clear biblical foundation: Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, Mount Carmel, Mount Tabor, Mount Calvary. It also enjoys a foundation in our Catholic Tradition, exemplified in St. John of the Cross's great spiritual masterpiece, "The Ascent of Mount Carmel". In this also Mary is our great Mother, Model and Teacher: "She went in haste to the mountain" (Lk. 1, 39). Her whole life is for us an exemplary lesson in the dispositions required for the journey to the summit of holiness.
Patron Saints and Protectors
Our chief Patron Saint and Protector is Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Our other Patron Saints and Protectors are: the prophet Elijah, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, St. John of the Cross and Karol Wojtyla (who, as Pope John Paul II, in an address to young people, said: "It is necessary to climb the mountains to embrace in the infinite spaces the wonderful work of God. It is necessary to climb, to embrace the invitation to make of your life a continual ascent to the sublime goals of the human and Christian virtues").
Typical Activities
The Ave Maria University Men's Outdoors Club has two high points in the academic year, one each semester, namely during Fall Break and Spring Break, consisting of overnight camping excursions to the mountains. It will also organize day excursions and weekend excursions - such as fishing and canoeing trips - during the rest of the year depending on the level of interest and always taking care not to interfere with strong study periods leading up to examinations. Our activities and excursions will be for male students only.