Transfiguration was taken from the word “Metamorphous” which means “to make a great change in form” (“Meta” meaning “something greater” and “Morphe” meaning “form”). In Heb 10:20 it was said that Jesus’ Divine nature was “veiled” in human form and the transfiguration was a unique display of his divine character and a glimpse of his divine glory. It is to change the outside to match the inside of a person.

In Jewish thought the presence of God is regularly connected with the cloud. We heard in the First Reading in the book of Daniel that the Son of Man will come down from heaven riding on a cloud. It was also the dream of the Jews that when the Messiah comes, the cloud of God’s presence would return again to the Temple. This descent of the cloud into Christ in our Gospel today is a way of saying that “the Messiah had come.”

For the Jews a case must be proven by 3 witnesses (Deut 19:15), that’s why Jesus took the 3 apostles, Peter, James and John with him. And during the Transfiguration, he was seen talking with the 3 other great witnesses: Moses was the supreme law-giver of Israel; Elijah was the first and the greatest of the prophets; and there was “the Voice of God”that assured the world that his Divine Will rests on Jesus, his beloved Son. Furthermore, Mountain was always pictured in the Bible as the place for meeting God.  We remember Moses who received the tablets of the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai (Ex 19-20) or the prophet Elijah in his contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kgs. 18:19-40).

In today’s Gospel, Christ revealed his glory in the lofty place of Mt Tabor. In our life, we also go up to our own “mountain” whenever we communicate to God in prayer. But like the apostles, we should also learn how to “go down” to the people and put into concrete actions what we experienced with Him in prayer. As Christians we should not be stuck up only in the church or chapel, but we should continue that prayer in doing apostle to the poor and lowly.

The experience of Transfiguration conquered the fears of the apostles caused by Jesus’ statement that he was going to Jerusalem to die. It gave them something to hold on to, something to hope for. They can not control such enormous joy in their hearts that made them exclaim, “Teacher, it is good for us to be here.” When we became Christians, God did not promise 24 hour ‘glorious experiences’. In fact Jesus encourages us to accept the crosses of life. But amidst these pains and trials, God usually gives us a “glimpse” to glories of life. Even how dark “the sky of our life” is, God always shows us some ‘silver lining’ behind the dark clouds of life. He shows that there is always something to “hope for.” We should not only count our failures but also the graces that God is giving us everyday. We should not count the number of times we fall, but the times that God helped us to stand and walk again with hope.

It was not only Jesus who was transfigured. But the apostles themselves were changed too. Their faith grew and their way of looking at life was also transformed. May our experience of meeting God in prayer change not only our perception of God but also the way we interact and associate with other people. I hope that every time we pray we will be more compassionate and merciful to others. As one of the saints said, “Prayer changes not God but the person who prays.”