The Peter memoirs and our common imagination

Today's gospel of the Transfiguration is taken from the gospel of St Mark. One of the beautiful things about St Mark's gospel is that in a sense it is not his at all: it is the gospel of St Peter. St Mark was one of Peter's disciples and so much of the latter's gospel is made up of Peter's recollections of the life and ministry of Jesus.

Memory is crucial to who we are. We think of memory in clinical and psychological ways these days; not as a power of the soul in which is rooted not only our identity but also our spiritual experience. What is so striking about today's gospel is that it is full of those elements that reveal to us the eye of the first-hand witness who recalls not only the scene but how it made him feel. 

The mountain was 'high'; Jesus' clothes became 'dazzling'; it was 'wonderful' to be there; the disciples were 'so frightened'. Eventually, they were covered in shadow and heard a voice.

In some way this process of remembering must have been anchoring for Peter, as it is for us. Remembering and forgetting can be processes beyond our control, and yet they are vital to us. There is some mysterious link between memory and justice, perhaps because justice requires the recollection of harm done and dues paid. At the same time, forgetting is mysteriously connected to peace, not because we want to bury the past but because when healing has happened, it is safe to leave the past in the past. It is we, not Jesus, who can be troubled by the recollection of sins confessed and ills that have been righted. Perhaps some wounds go too deep to be healed in this life, and their presence is part of the cross that He has assigned to us. 

St Ignatius's method of meditation on the gospels draws precisely on the power of memory and imagination. In what is called the 'composition of place', we spend a few moments thinking about how it would have felt to be in a particular gospel scene: what we would have seen, smelt, heard. This is not personal memory - because none of us was there - but in some ways, the words of the gospel enable us to benefit from a shared memory, a collective imagination that is specific to each of us but common to all in a sense. When we reflect and ruminate on the scenes of the gospel, we are recalling everything that this collective memory and imagination of the Church holds for us. And when we are open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, then His gifts can help us draw on this collective memory and stand also in the shadow of God's cloud where we can hear His voice.

 (Photo:  Mount Tabor by Susanne from the Lay Council)