"It was 6 August, the Feast of the Transfiguration in the liturgical calendar. In the world's calendar it was the anniversary of Hiroshima. I couldn't help but make the connection as I reflected on these two narratives, so strangely linked by the chance of a date.

"Both these stories, the one from the Christian Gospel, the other from the Second World War, are completely over the top in the way they stretch credibility to its limits. Who would believe his friends when they reported that Jesus had been transformed into a dazzling presence of light on the mountain-top, appearing to them with Moses and Elijah alongside him? Wouldn't people say the heat had affected their minds and made them susceptible to hallucinations? And who would believe that wholesale, lingering, malignant, generation-leaping death would drop from the skies upon hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children — some of them yet unborn? Had the heat of war not surely addled our brains and caused us to take leave of our senses and forget the first principles of what it means to be human?

"Yet there they are: two stories that can help us to be more aware of both our life-giving and our life-denying tendencies, and help us discern the difference. Perhaps these stories serve us well in this regard precicely because they are so over the top. We don't, after all, see visions like the transfiguration, do we . . . ? Nor are we responsible for atrocities such as the bombing of Hiroshima, are we . . . ? So why is it that people who may well go out of their way to declare that they 'are not religious' do in fact experience mountain-top moments in their lives that continue to affect the way they live, long after the moment has passed? And why is it that perfectly decent men and women can in practice behave in sub-human ways when they are put into uniform and ordered to kill their fellow creatures?

"The answer, certainly as [Ignatius of Loyola] would see it, lies in the perpetual conflict between the creative and the destructive movements within our hearts — the good and evil spirits, as he calls them. We could also describe them as the 'best' and 'worst' within us.

"Perhaps I might share with you the reflection that arose for me on that day, 6 August, because they may be helpful in leading us further into this matter of discernment.

"First the two lights:

"The one is a blinding, sickening flash, death-dealing, and the fruit of fear and hatred. It is hypnotic in its power, drawing all eyes to gaze, quite literally, upon their own destruction, to become fixed to the terror and the brilliance and charged with the destructive energy that will contaminate their whole being.

"The other light momentarily transfigures a man who lives completely true to the best in himself. He appears to his friends to be literally transformed by the light of that inner truth. The light illuminates the whole course of a people's sacred history (we learn that Moses and Elijah are included in its halo). It displaces everything except its own perfect radiance and causes those who fall within its power to shade their eyes in reverence.

"It is the difference between radiance and radiation!

"Do you have any memories of your own, of moments when your life's landscape was momentarily transfigured by the sweeping beam of God's love, or the breathtaking beauty of creation, or the deep warmth of human communion? Just remember these sacred times of transfiguration and let their light penetrate the height and depth and breadth of your being. This kind of light is shed by your 'angels' — the life-giving moments in your heart. It reveals the traces of your deepest and finest dreams, the dreams that God shares with you. Let it illuminate the path for you — the path that shows you the more loving, the more true, the more Christ-like thing to do next.

"Now, in the confidence that the transfiguration light has more power within you than any lesser glow, recall any aspects of your life that feel more like the death-flash over Hiroshima (though probably less dramatic). Recall anything that has transfixed you with fear or with a compulsive desire that your deeper heart knew was destructive. Don't be afraid to acknowledge, if necessary, that there have been more destructive flashes than transforming lights — you would not be alone in this truth. These lights reflect the power of the destructive movements within you, with their capacity to hold you captive in ways that seduce you into choices that are not leading to life.

"Finally, in the honesty of your own heart, and in the presence of your God, reflect on which of these lights you choose to nurture, and which you would want to work against, and then ask God for the grace to follow these desires in practical ways."