The tragic reality of our broken world is that most people have no idea who they are becoming.
Certainly, they know what they want to do with their life, their goals and what they need to do to achieve them, and their dreams…. All of these are precious and important, but part of something larger.
It’s the larger thing that’s so often missing, or rather unknown.
Like it was missing for Peter and James and John.
On the mountain of Tabor, they fell to the ground as Jesus was transfigured before their eyes. Jesus “was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Mt 17:2). Jesus gave his apostles—and us—a wonderful vision of his glory, a foreshadowing of the kingdom of heaven. Like the burning bush in Exodus, something shone out from Jesus that they had not seen before, a radiance of glory that they had not known was there. It was a moment of intensity in which the “always-already-existing unity of the Father and Son is made visible” (Wellspring of Worship, page 93).
And all this was really about them! It was to teach them the “larger thing” they had been missing not only about Jesus, but about themselves!
Christ manifested to his disciples who he, in fact, was and what we, in him, are becoming. St. John Damascene says that he opened their eyes and gave these blind men sight to see the fullness of the life of God that he gives to humanity through his Incarnation. In this extraordinary experience of his glory revealed on Mount Tabor, Christ was giving us all a glimpse of who we are when we are in union with him.
We could say, then, that on the feast of the Transfiguration, we are seeing the “larger thing,” the telos, which is an old Greek word that means ultimate goal or purpose. When we stand before Christ transfigured before us, we are seeing our final destination, the finish line, so to speak, where we’re headed. “When our humanity consents without reserve to be united to the humanity of Jesus, it will share the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4); it will be divinized” (page 95). Another way to put it is that in the Transfiguration of Jesus we discover our built-in design. In the Transfiguration of Christ we gain a broader and deeper vision of life.
And that’s why every Daughter of St. Paul feels herself standing—in words reminiscent of our Founder—at the crossroads of humanity calling out: Look at Christ! See who you are!
The tragic reality of our broken world is that so many carry such burdens that they couldn’t believe this glory could be theirs. Or no one has ever told them there is something more than what they have experienced. That God could love them so much, just as they are, where they are, with what they carry, and invite them into communion with him forever!
That the world that sees such defeat through war and fear and helplessness and human calculation could hardly believe that it could be broken open by the faithfulness of God and understand that the final word in history does not belong to suffering, injustice, evil, or death. That history is not a series of random, chaotic events; it is a single tapestry woven by a faithful God. On Tabor, all of history points directly to the center: Jesus Christ.
That those who face such challenges in the routine and pressures of everyday life, the quicksand of failure and hopelessness and ideological quagmires, could dare hope that no night in life lasts forever.
Look at Christ! See who you are becoming!
The Transfiguration of Christ is actually the revelation of an eternal truth: the ongoing, relentless mystery of God’s faithfulness, stretching across all human history and embedded in every single soul.
This is what gets me up in the morning. The explosion of intimacy in the Transfiguration of Christ radiates quietly in morning hours of stillness and prayer, in the Mass and Holy Communion, where I encounter Jesus at the side of my sisters. Our life is supposed to be a life of listening to him, seeking communion with him, becoming more and more like him. On our knees in the morning we receive from Jesus what we later that day will give to others in a podcast, design and illustrate in a book, write in a blog post or share in a virtual formation event, or say to someone we meet in person in one of our Book Centers. It’s not that he tells us what to say. It is through the movements of reflecting, abiding, waiting, and deepening the Word that we gradually become more open to Jesus’ Heart for his people.
Saint John Paul II once said, “Those who are called to the consecrated life have a special experience of the light which shines forth from the Incarnate Word. …” (VC 15). This is the radical gift of consecrated life. We have the gift to be with him always – to make him the one true focus of our life. As John Paul says, “Truly those who have been given the grace of this special communion of love with Christ feel as if they were caught up in his splendor: he is ‘the fairest of the sons of men’ (Ps 45:2), the One beyond compare.” (VC 15).
But this love and light is not for ourselves alone. It is to radiate through us so that Jesus can still be transfigured before the eyes of the world today. Each day we seek to be for the world through the media a living image of the Transfigured Christ. To let his voice enter the world filled with competing noise, to prove that God does not abandon the human condition. He enters it, shines through it, and transforms it from within. To reflect that glory back to people until they recognize it in themselves, until they trust that the Father calls them his beloved son and dear daughter. To let the world see through our mission who they are and who we are all becoming in Christ.