“Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.”
Bing Crosby provided the soundtrack to my every childhood Christmas, so I can’t remember a time I didn’t know “Good King Wenceslas.” The song’s meaning deepened, however, during my pilgrimage along the Ignatian Camino.
On the second day of our journey from Loyola to Manresa, we hiked to the Shrine of Our Lady of Arantzazu, high in the Basque mountains. For three hours, we ascended over alarmingly steep terrain, summiting at just under 4,000 feet. The altitude and unrelenting grade left me shaking and winded; I didn’t know how I could keep going.
Since there was no helicopter to pluck me off the mountain, one of my companions came to my rescue. Jane Asher is a petite Australian woman, a veteran hiker 10 years my senior. She alternately carried my pack, entertained me with stories, and — when I was completely tuckered out — announced “I’m going to ‘Good King Wenceslas’ you for a while!”
You know the plot. Pushing through a blizzard on a mission of mercy, the king’s servant didn’t think he could go any farther, either, until the king said, “Mark my footsteps, my good page; tread thou in them boldly. Thy shalt find the winter’s rage freeze thy blood less coldly.” The servant complied: “In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted; heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.”
Stepping in front of me, Jane walked purposefully at a pace she thought I could manage. I placed my feet where her boots had trod; this warmed my heart and enabled me to press on. It remains one of my most tender memories of the pilgrimage.
In the carol, Wenceslas didn’t order his servant out into the cold; he walked with him and before him. Here I find a sublime metaphor for the Incarnation. In Jesus, God taught us how to walk — not by pointing and ordering, but by taking on flesh and walking.
Many years ago, I was moved by a DeSales University Christmas concert during which the narrator proclaimed, “Rejoice! The souls of his feet have reached the earth!” In this season, as we strive to walk in the way of Jesus (and Ignatius), may we find heat in the very sod, giving us the strength to place our own footprints where someone else needs to find them.
