Transfiguration

"After six days , Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light." [Matthew 17:1-2]

"Transfiguration" means a supernatural transformation in appearance.

I admit that I am a newer Catholic, and I used to get confused about The Transfiguration, thinking it represented Jesus' death and rising, his ultimate exaltation with His Father, in Heaven. I used to think this event came AFTER the Crucifixion.

Of course, I was wrong. No person saw Jesus actually rise to Heaven after his Crucifixion. All anyone saw was the stone rolled away. And that Jesus was "gone".

No, in fact, The Transfiguration was a supernatural Vision. It came before Jesus' walk along the long road to his Crucifixion, on what we know as Palm Sunday; before the cheers and jeers, before his suffering on the cross.

In that sense, the Transfiguration was not Jesus' final ascension. But it was a prophesy, because it prefigured Jesus' ultimate ascent into Heaven.

And I see this Vision and prophesy as a huge gift! It speaks to the ability of God to come to us in all His glory, before we even know that we are going to need Him so desperately. Just the way that Jesus and His disciples experienced God's glory, before the extreme suffering of the Crucifixion.

The Transfiguration vividly displays all the ways in which God, through Jesus, can come to us, can call to us, can even transform us.

In the past, at a time when I thought my life was relatively peaceful and uneventful, I have felt God's infinite Presence. He has called me closer to Him in various ways. Sometimes by manifesting Himself to me in quiet moments when I have been alone. This happened to me just before I was to undergo perhaps the most devastating and traumatic experience of my life. I think God was coming to me as my Infinitely Strong, Infinitely Peaceful Creator. This experience made me think of, "Be still and know that I am."

God knew the trial that was to come my way. He knew that I would need Him in so many deeper ways. He knew that with His deeply felt presence in my mind and in my heart, I could withstand this trial with so much more strength, by leaning on Him. In His love, He came to me before I would suffer.

Or I think about the time He called me to convert and therefore, to receive my First Holy Eucharist in decades. I have to say I fought the timing on that one! "Why, God!?", I would protest, "Why now?" My father had died abruptly one day that previous spring, here one moment, gone the next. My best friend was dying. I had my frail mother to care for. This so did NOT seem the time to go through RCIA!

I kept stalling, but the call was so insistent, I obeyed. The timing remained a mystery to me until -- right after conversion -- when my best friend died. I was able to receive the Eucharist at her funeral! THIS was why God called me to His side so relentlessly! It turns out He was right, I really did not have any time to waste, trying to decide whether to come closer to God.

I love The Transfiguration because it is Jesus in His most supernatural form. It shows God's extremely generous Love for us, His capacity to rescue us before we can even realize or foresee the danger, the pain, the isolation.

 But the Vision also reminds me that Jesus is there for us in all His forms, as well: as a young teacher preaching in the temple, as the shepherd of His flock who knows all His sheep by name, as the Fisher of Men who calls us to immediately drop our nets and follow Him; as the Prophet who says, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." [Matthew 16:25].

God, may You come to me, even at times when I do not know that I need you. And may You come to me in the form and in the way that I need You the most!

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