Go tell it on the mountain

The plain of Jezreel, also known as Armageddon, is on the only valley which runs east-west in the region, and it became the main route to the south-western limits of the Roman Empire and to the trading centres beyond Damascus.

Our guide Abie has a typically Jewish attitude to fortune; when times are good you can enjoy the fruits of that situation ... but when you are the flux point of trade and travel, you'll also find that eventually you'll be destroyed as others, usually outside powers, fight their wars on your territory.

Thus the plain, and the dome mountain which dominates it, have been places of batle, conquest and defeat, as well as prosperous trade since time immemorial. The top of the mountain has been a place of fortresses and sanctuaries on and off for thousands of years.

As a Holy Land site, Mount Tabor has become the reputed place of the Transfiguration story, where Jesus went up a mountain with Peter, James and John just before his last days on earth. There, the story goes, his face and clothing became transformed and he revealed to them his Divine origin. It is also said that Moses and Elijah appeared and talked to Jesus.

"Up to now, as Jesus went about his work, it had become increasingly apparent that there was more to him than met the eye," Fr Murphy told the Kilcullen pilgrims yesterday. "The miracles that were happening, for instance, were all leading up to the moment we are here for."

What actually happened at that moment remains a mystery, Fr Michael continued, something in that 'mysterious zone of aspects of our existence that are beyond what we can see, hear, or know'. "But what we do know is that it was about the Divinity of Jesus."

That it was an event beyond the understanding of his friends is made clear from the account in St Luke's Gospel, which notes that they went down from the mountain and 'in those days told no one what they had seen'.

Even from the vantage point of a strategic mountain, you can't expect to understand everything. But also, given what happened to their leader in the subsequent days, it wouldn't have been in the interests of their personal survival to talk loudly about unearthly light on a mountain top.

Some close encounters can be too close for comfort.

Pictures from the trip.

Reported from Galilee by the Accidental Pilgrim.