PEAK EXPERIENCES

Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain

by themselves. Jesus was transfigured before them; his

face shone like the sun and his clothes became white

as light. Moses and Elijah appeared to them. 

Matthew 17:1-3

A taste! A sample! A feel! A lick! A sip! A bite! A glimpse! A glance! A peep! A flash! A forecast! A tease! A preview! We have lots of names for it – experiencing something beforehand. That is what this mountain top experience is all about, Jesus giving his disciples an advanced glimpse of glory before it happened.  

On a mountaintop, you can see in all directions. On the mountaintop in this gospel story, Jesus was able to see in all directions, not only literally, but also symbolically. He could see the past, the present and the future. He could see how the prophets of the past foretold his coming as the Messiah. He could see the necessary suffering in front of him. He could see the glory that awaited him after his resurrection. This insight, this realization, was a mind-blowing, clothes-glowing, religious experience when everything came into focus for him. In other words, he finally “got it!” From this gospel, we have created a phrase for these kinds of experiences. We call them “peak experiences."

The only problem with a taste, a sample, a feel, a lick, a sip, a bite, a glimpse, a glance, a peep, a flash, a forecast, a tease and a preview, is that we end up wanting more and more of it - like a drug addict's first "high!" That’s what was on Peter’s mind when he blurted out in the middle of this mind-blowing experience, “Lord, this is so wonderful, so unbelievable! Let’s set up some tents and just stay up here on this mountain top forever!”

This is what happens when some people have been on a wonderful retreat or have been given a major insight at a workshop or program. They want to repeat it over and over again and make it permanent. They even crusade to get other people to go where they went for their experience so that others might have the same experience they had! How many times have we been hounded by people who insist that we, too, need to go to Marriage Encounter, Lourdes, Medjugore or an A.A/Al-Anon program so that we, too, can have the same retreat experience that they had?

“Peak experiences,” however, are normally unique - neither transferable nor repeatable. They serve a unique purpose. Like the one in the gospel today, these experiences help people get through the bad times, without losing hope. What happened on the mountain that day was designed to help the apostles make it through the rough days ahead of them. They had to come down from the mountain and face the passion and death of Jesus before he would rise from the dead. After his resurrection, when they did see the risen Christ in his brilliant white robes, they remembered this mountain top experience with Jesus in his “white as light clothes." They realized they had actually gotten a glimpse of resurrection glory beforehand. The very word "transfiguration" itself means "a change of something into something better." 

The thrill of a new perspective cannot be sustained for an indefinite period. As anyone who has been through the initial "high" of treatment programs knows, they have to go back to reality and face all the old issues and old problems for a while. If these experiences are personal, unique, temporary and not transferable, then why bother with them to begin with? Aren't they just a cruel tease? Absolutely not! Rene Daumal described the slipping back into the old realities this way: “You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees, one descends; one sees no longer, but one has seen!” There is an art to living peacefully in the real life world, with its real life problems. When we can longer see, we can at least remember what we have seen, and remembering what we have seen, helps us keep going.

I believe that a “peak experience” is what separates those who remain in the church from those who drop out. Without that one special Mass, that one special retreat, that one special experience of the holy, it is hard to keep going in a church that seems to be experiencing so many problems. The more powerful one's  “peak experience” is, the more "desert experiences"  one can endure! This phenomenon is impossible to explain to someone who has never been through a "peak experience.”

I have been fortunate enough to have two or three "peak experiences" as a priest, times when I felt, beyond a doubt, that God had worked through me to help others. They do not happen every day, but they were so powerful that, remembering them, I have been able to remain in the priesthood, without giving into the hopelessness that sometimes overtakes priests these days. 

For this reason, several years ago I committed myself to turning my time and attention toward doing some extra priest retreat work so as to make some money so I could help out in the Caribbean missions. I made twelve trips down there to support the bishop, the diocese, the parishes, the schools, the orphanage, the hospital and the priests and Sisters. One of the many things we did during those years was to send some of the youth of that diocese to World Youth Day in Poland. Even though I had to quit my mission work in the Caribbean missions because of COVID and a volcano eruption, I helped gather money from some friends to send some more youth to World Youth Day that is taking place this year in Portugal.  Why do I do it? I do it because I believe that these trips put these disadvantaged young people in a position to have a unique, once-in-a-lifetime religious experience, a "peak experience" if you will, that will help sustain their Catholic faith for years to come.

These “peak experiences” cannot be staged or arranged. They are gifts from God that come in God’s own time. If you have never had one of these experiences, pray for this gift, pray for your own “glimpse of glory.” These "peak experiences" make the tough times bearable. They help us make sense of all the nonsense that we see much of the world enduring!