Until May 29^th, 1953, no one had ever stood on top of Mount Everest. At nearly 30,000 feet, it is the highest place on earth.

On that day, two men, Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay became the first to successfully reach the top of Everest.

When news of the event arrived in London, it was on the same day as The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, June 2, 1953. She made Edmund Hillary a knight. She also gave a knighthood to John Hunt, the leader of the Expedition. He never made it to the top. Tenzig was given a medal, but not a knighthood.

The expedition consisted of 400 people, including 362 porters and 20 Nepalese Sherpa guides. They all received some kind of recognition.

But, there has been a controversy about why Tenzig wasn’t knighted and who actually reached the top first. Sir Edmund said that he and Teznig stepped on top “simultaneously.”

In any event, with Teznig and the 400 others, Sir Edmund would not have become famous and we would never have heard of him. As Sir John Hunt said, “They reached it together, as a team.”

Most of the time, when members of a sport team are honored for an individual achievement, they attribute their accomplishment not to themselves, but to the entire team. You know that as well as anyone.

It is a life lesson. Although we enter this life alone, and leave it alone, we get through life with the help of others.

In today’s first reading from the Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul talks about the Church as a body. Using that metaphor, he wrote, “The whole Body, joined together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the Body’s growth and builds itself up in love.”

The word “church” in English does not convey the original Greek word “Ekklesia.” That is a plural word and means “assembly.” You can’t have an assembly with only one person.

Religion is, if you will, a team sport. All the prayers in the Mass are in the plural. We don’t say “My Father in heaven,” we say “Our Father.”

Because there are so many good people in the world-wide Church, I don’t worry that God is with us. If I forget that, then I may think I am alone. Even so, in my forgetfulness, there is someone somewhere making up for my inattention by doing heroic works of mercy or suffering more than their share.

To paraphrase Sir John Hunt, “We all reach to the top together, as a team.”

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