Transfiguring Life-events

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f someone were to write the story of your life, which moments would they call your transfiguring life-events? Not simply the happiest days, but the moments that changed you forever—the death of a loved one, falling in love, becoming a parent, recovering from an illness, a painful failure, or a retreat that changed everything. What are your transfiguring life-events?

Today's Gospel (Mt 17:1-9) invites us to look at the transfiguring moments in the lives of some of the great figures of Scripture. For Moses, his transfiguring moment came through a bitter experience. The first forty years of his life were spent in Pharaoh's palace as a prince of Egypt. Believing he could save his people by his own strength, he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. His impulsive act forced him to flee Egypt. The prince became a fugitive, a criminal in hiding. The man who, as a baby, had been saved from the waters and was destined for greatness now became a shepherd in the wilderness. It was a bitter transformation, and it lasted for forty quiet years.

By the time Moses was eighty years old, his life seemed to have reached a dead end. Yet it was there that he encountered God in the burning bush (Ex 3) on Mount Horeb. In Hebrew, Horeb means “desolation.” There, his true transformation began. God called him to lead Israel out of Egypt. The event that seemed to mark the end of his dreams became the beginning of God's greatest work through him.

Elijah's transfiguring moment was also born out of failure and discouragement. After his great victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, he expected Israel to return to God. Instead, Queen Jezebel threatened to kill him. Fear overcame him. He fled into the wilderness, sat beneath a broom tree, and prayed, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life" (1 Kgs 19:4). The fearless prophet wanted to die. Yet God did not abandon him. 500 years after Moses, Elijah was led to the same Mount Horeb where God revealed Himself—not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in a gentle whisper.

Jesus' transfiguring moment also came at a decisive turning point. After roughly three years of public ministry, Jesus revealed to His disciples that He would have to suffer, be rejected, and be put to death in Jerusalem. But Peter could not accept it. He wanted the glory without the Cross. It was then that Jesus led Peter, James, and John up a high mountain.

While Moses and Elijah were transformed through their encounter with God, Jesus' Transfiguration reveals something entirely different. The English word "Transfiguration" comes from the Greek word metamorphosis, meaning "a transformation" or "a change of form." As He was transfigured, His face shone with radiant light, and His clothes became dazzling white. Unlike Moses, who was transformed from prince to shepherd, or Elijah, who was transformed from despair to renewed mission, Jesus was not becoming someone new. His Transfiguration revealed who He had always been—the beloved Son of the Father. Yet being the Son did not mean He would be spared from Calvary or the humiliation of the Cross. In fact, the glory revealed on the mountain pointed toward an even greater glory—the glory of self-giving love on the Cross, which would lead to the Resurrection.

What is your transfiguring life-event? And what made it truly a transfiguring event, like those of Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John? The answer can only be this: a relationship. A wedding changes a life because of a newfound relationship. The birth of a child changes a life because of a newfound relationship. The death of a loved one changes a life because we discover a new relationship with loss, with hope, and often with God. Even a retreat changes a life not because of the place, the silence, or even the retreat giver—although we like to think we help—but because of a newfound or deepened relationship with God.

In the end, every transfiguring life-event is only the doorway. It is the encounter with God that truly transfigures us. The deepest transfiguring moments of our lives are those that draw us into a closer relationship with God. For when our relationship with God is transfigured, everything else in our lives is transformed as well.

Let us pray: Lord, lead us to a newfound relationship with You in every transfiguring moment of our lives. Amen. Fr JM Manzano SJ