Going Down the Mountain

By FATHER MICHAEL J. O'LEARY

In his book "Tuesdays With Morrie" (Doubleday), Mitch Albom quotes Morrie Schwartz as saying: "Learn to detach...Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent." This certainly seems like good advice, though if we didn't read on, maybe a little cold.

The kind of detachment he is speaking about, however, is where we embrace and not reject the various emotions which we are given to experience.

He says that "detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it."

Our Catholic faith encourages us to practice detachment so that our hearts can be free from the imprisoning effect of clinging to people and things. It's a detachment "for" and not a detachment "from."

It's not just about letting go of one experience so as to embrace the next. It's "for" a purpose that is infinitely more beneficial and worthwhile.

When we are truly detached, in the Christian sense, our hearts are free to respond in love to Christ, our Lord, our friend, who showed us the greatest love of all by giving his life for us--his perfect act of love from a free heart. So we are free to respond in love to the God who first loved us.

By his transfiguration on the mountain our Savior was preparing his three disciples for his death on the cross. It was an event that certainly strengthened their faith in him, one which they would be able to recall later when things were going to get rough.

Peter enjoyed the experience so much that he wanted to stay there. Just when he sensed that the conversation was breaking up between Jesus, Moses and Elijah, he said: "It is good for us that we are here; let us make three tents."

He wanted to cling to the experience, and he found it difficult to let go. Later he would realize, when the mystery and necessity of the Lord's passion and death would sink in, that the fear of going down the mountain was OK, because the Lord was with them.

Father O'Leary is parochial vicar of Holy Name of Jesus parish in Valhalla.