On our pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt in January 2018, our group visited Mount Tabor where the transfiguration of our Lord occurred as you heard in the Gospel this weekend. The mountain is quite steep and in our modern times, groups are taken up eight at a time in vans around a winding road to get the top. The brave (and those with oodles of time) hike up on the same road. Even when you get to the top, there is a bit of a walk (more than a few steps) to reach the large church erected directly on top of where the transfiguration took place.
Unlike my previous visit to the Holy Land in 2013, this time we were able to celebrate Mass in one of the small chapels on the site. Jesus took Peter, James and John up to the top of Mount Tabor and was transfigured before them. Their experience was profound, mysterious and beyond their ability to comprehend. In the biblical text, Peter babbles about “building a tent for Moses and Abraham and God” and remaining there. It becomes clear that this is not going to happen and instead they are sternly admonished not to tell about their experience until Jesus rises from the dead. Peter, James and John descend the mountain confused about what “rising from the dead” meant.
If the principal eyewitnesses to the transfiguration of Jesus were confused and overwhelmed trying to comprehend what they were experiencing and what it meant, then we should take great solace when we are confused and overwhelmed by whatever mysterious event is unfolding in our lives. As compelling as the transfiguration of the Lord is, it pales in comparison to the Eucharist we celebrate where there is not a temporal transfiguration but an eternal transubstantiation of the bread and the wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord. As we celebrated Eucharist atop Mount Tabor, I could not help but realize what a privilege we have in receiving the sacraments. Until the resurrection, the apostles could not even begin to perceive such a thing.
Small wonder we have the same problem. Great wonder what God does for us now and always.
