St. Peter is described as focal in the understanding in a lecture in our Annual Retreat. Fr. John OP assumed that the Transfiguration was located to the North.
See article below from Wikepedia.
The Franciscan Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor in Israel. Mount Tabor is traditionally identified as the Mount of Transfiguration.
Lent: February 24th
Second Sunday of Lent
The Gospel is from St. Luke 9:28-36
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond ....
Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2013, 13:02
Subject: Homily ...
From: Raymond ....
Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2013, 13:02
Subject: Homily ...
TRANSFIGURATION 2011
It is part of joy and of the needs of human nature to have friends, and not only to have friends but to have, among our friends those who are in a way very special friends. Jesus was no exception to this. He had among his disciples three who were very specially close to him: Peter, James and John. On three special occasions in the Gospel story we read of them being more closely associated him than the other apostles. There was the raising from the dead of the daughter of Jairus when he brought only them into the house with himself and the girls parents and there was the garden of Gethsemani when he drew them aside to pray close by him in his agony.
The third time was the scene described in today’s Gospel when Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain and was transfigured before them, with his face shining light the sun and his garments white as snow, he was leading them to an ever clearer knowledge of his divinity. They did not yet, even after this wonderful moment of revelation, understand it – as is witnessed by the Gospel comment – “They saw no one when the vision passed, but only Jesus.” – but the picture was becoming ever more clear.
The fact about this vision that would lead the Apostles, when they “pondered on these things”, to believe in the divinity of the Master, was the presence of Moses and Elijah in the vision.
The presence of Moses and Elijah in the vision would instinctively call to their minds the fact that these were the two great figures of the Old Testament who had each been granted a very special face to face vision of God. Moses, on the mountain of God, Horeb, and Elijah at the mouth of his cave on the very same mountain.
Besides this wonderful clue to his divinity, Jesus was also teaching them something else. He was revealing to them the glory destined, not only for his own sacred body, but also that which is destined for the bodies of us all for we are one body with him.
Satan, “the father of lies” takes us to the graveside and points down into the pit of corruption and decay and says: “That is the destiny of your miserable bodies”.
But Jesus takes us up to the mountain top and stands before us shining like the sun and says: “This is your destiny!” And we know that he is the absolute Truth
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Location of the mountain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration_of_Jesus#Location_of_the_mountain
Main article: Mount of the Transfiguration
None of the accounts identifies the "high mountain" of the scene by name.
Since the 3rd century, some Christians have identified Mount Tabor as the site of the Transfiguration, including Origen.[41] Tabor has long been a place of Christian pilgrimage and is the site of the Church of the Transfiguration. In 1808, Henry Alford cast doubt on Tabor due to the possible continuing Roman utilization of a fortress which Antiochus the Great built on Tabor in BC219, and which Josephus records was in use by the Romans in the Jewish War.[42] Others have countered that even if Tabor was fortified by Antiochus this does not rule out a transfiguration at the summit.[43] Edward Greswell, however, writing in 1830, saw "no good reason for questioning the ancient ecclesiastical tradition, which supposes it to have been mount Tabor."[44]
John Lightfoot rejects Tabor as too far but "some mountain near Caesarea-Philippi" [45] The usual candidate in this case is Mount Panium, Paneas, or Banias a small hill situated at the source of the Jordan, near the foot of which, Caesarea Philippi was built.[46]
R. T. France (1987) notes that Mount Hermon is closest to Caesarea Philippi, mentioned in the previous chapter of Matthew.[47] Likewise Meyboom (1861) identified "Djebel-Ejeik."[48]but this may be a confusion with Jabal el Sheikh, the Arabic name for Mount Hermon.
H. A. Whittaker (1987) proposes that it was Mount Nebo primarily on the basis that it was the location where Moses viewed the promised land and a parallelism in Jesus' words on descent from the mountain of transfiguration; "You will say to this mountain (i.e. of transfiguration), ‘Move from here to there,’ (i.e. the promised land) and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.[49]
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