Five weeks from today, on August 6, we celebrate the great Feast of the Transfiguration, when Christ ascended Mount Tabor and shone before Peter, James, and John with a light not of this world. I have stood on that mountain. Tabor rises alone from the Jezreel Valley. The road to its summit climbs in tight switchbacks that force you to slow, to turn, to ascend in earnest. At the top, looking out over the green hills of Galilee, I felt my own calling to the contemplative life q

Commemorating the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Sept 13) - which people visit to pay homage where Jesus was crucified and...