We return this week to the Genesis world of Abram and Sarai. This patriarch and his matriarch wife came to be called Abraham and Sarah. Because of their relationship to God, they were blest with descendants numbering more than the number of stars in the sky. Their faith is the foundation of the 3 great monotheistic traditions known as the “Abrahamic religions.” Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each claim to descend from Abraham.
This week’s Gospel reading is known as the “Transfiguration” of Jesus. It begins with Jesus, Peter, James, and John going to a mountain (ascent of a mountain signaling to us that some profound appearance of God will take place—called a “theophany”). Once at the top, the disciples see Moses (who represents the “Law” of the Torah) and Elijah (who represents the “Prophets”). God’s voice from a cloud is heard to say “Listen to him.” And so, it is as if to say Jesus combined within Himself both the “Law” and the “Prophets.” He is the new covenant of God with the “human race.”
We don’t use the term “transfiguration” in everyday speech, but in today’s story, it is illustrated when Jesus is seen in a new and glorious way by the 3 disciples. His appearance is transformed. He is seen as the “chosen one” of God who distills in Himself all of Hebrew scripture and more!
This incident demonstrates that our spiritual growth entails opening ourselves to seeing reality in ways previously unknown. It is a story that reminds me of an experience I had as a child. I was about 6 years old. One of my playmates was Mike Brady. Mike was always on a 3-wheeler bike because he had polio and couldn’t walk. He’d accompany us down the block as we would walk on the sidewalk or driveways and he would peddle along with us.
One day, I was with him when he said that he could walk, too. He said he’d show me that he could walk—but I was not to tell his mom that he showed me. Whereupon he got off his bike—with some difficulty—and stood as upright as he could. He then moved forward slowly in hard-to-do steps. Then he turned back to the bike and returned to his seat—positioning himself on it once again as before. Seeing Mike move as he did, I was amazed. We all knew he couldn’t walk, but I had seen that he could! Later on I told my mom about what I had seen—the unbelievable fact that Mike Brady could walk. I had witnessed a great revelation—seeing reality in a way I had never previously seen. Mike had been “transfigured” before me and I actually saw him standing face-to-face with me for those few minutes.
So the story of Jesus opening the eyes of the disciples is a story about us needing to have our eyes opened to realities that are not entirely on our radar. We still have much to learn—whatever our age, income level, ethnicity, knowledge, or powers of some sort that make us feel secure. The tribal Celts had a concept that the mountain experience represents. Namely, some locations or experiences can be “thin places” wherein the supernatural and natural are very close to one another and are revelatory of something that moves us to new insight. Our minds expand and we are “in touch” with more than we previously possessed.
One such experience for me occurred when making an 8-day retreat. Midway through the experience, I was speaking to God in prayer as I walked the beautifully landscaped retreat house grounds. The natural world looked lovely as the trees along the river were joined by rabbits hopping in the grass and all was peaceful. “It’s easy to believe in your existence, Lord, when the world around me is so peaceful and pleasant. Where are you when my experience is not peaceful and pleasant—when I really need you to somehow help me?” Such were my thoughts as I walked off the retreat house grounds and into a neighborhood where traffic replaced the calm vista I had just departed.
I walked a sidewalk whose street was filled with honking cars and a “semi” switching its gears loudly enough to make the whole scene an unpleasant one. As I proceeded, a white picket fence was on my right and the unpleasant sounds of street traffic gave way to the startling and unpleasant sound of a dog rushing alongside me on the other side of the fence. It was barking as if to say “If this fence weren’t here, I’d have you by the leg—just as that other dog had you as a child—and sent you to have 14 rabies shots.” I was not in a good state of mind and I mused to God “Where are you when life isn’t pleasant and when the nasty sound of voices barking at me? Where are you at those times, Lord?”
No sooner had I pondered that type of thought than a woman appeared at the door of the fenced-in house. Her voice blended with that of her barking dog as she shouted: “Here, Angel. Come here, Angel.” And with that summons, the barking dog turned tail and ran to the woman and into the house whose door she held open.
It was as if God had to send a messenger to me–”angel” meaning ‘messenger of god’.” It was as if I had to be drawn a big picture by God—and told “I’m with you in bad times and good, in sickness and in health, in pleasant landscapes and busy streets. I am ‘Emmanuel’—God with you.” As it was in the beginning with Peter, James, and John, I was charged with taking my experience of this “thin place” transfiguration of hearing and feeling God’s presence—from that retreat experience—down from the mountain, and into the lives of people I would meet elsewhere.
And so it is that we meet in this “thin place” of church—bringing our ordinary sense of self to this mountain altar where we are reminded of God’s tangible presence. We are here exposed to the thin places of sacramental encounters such as baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and sacred observances that expose us to God’s word. Here we learn that the story of Peter, James, and John is our story of being here and now in prayer at the Mass. And this is where we realize God calls us to be a “thin place” with whom one encounters the risen Lord in their experience of you.
Take us, Lord, from this sacred thin place of sacramental encounter to other thin places of insight—so that we can be the apostles so needed by those who stand alone on mountains with no sense of inspiration or guidance.