The Transfiguration: When Jesus Lets Us See Who He Is
- Mar 1
- 7 min read
There is a mercy in the way the Church gives us the Transfiguration on the Second Sunday of Lent. Right after we walk with Jesus into the desert, where everything feels dry, ordinary, and fought over, the Church leads us up to a mountain where everything suddenly becomes radiant. It is not random. It is not simply “a beautiful story.” It is Jesus strengthening our faith before the scandal of Calvary, and it is the Father clarifying for us, in the simplest possible way, who Jesus truly is.
Because if we get that wrong, we get everything wrong.
In Matthew 17:1–9, the disciples do not merely see Jesus doing something impressive. They see, briefly, the veil lifted. They see what is normally hidden. And once you’ve seen that, you can never look at Him the same way again. That is the point. The Transfiguration is not meant to entertain us; it is meant to reshape our hearts.
And it also exposes something very modern in us: we are often far more material than we realise. We trust what we can measure, what we can touch, what we can see, what we can explain. Yet the Gospel quietly insists that the deepest things are often invisible to the eyes that have never been trained to see. The disciples needed a moment of glory not because Jesus suddenly became glorious, but because they needed help perceiving what was already true.
Why the Transfiguration matters?
The world will always offer us a reduced Jesus. Jesus as inspiring teacher, a prophet, moral example, revolutionary, wise man, friend of the poor. All of that is true as far as it goes, but it is not enough. The Transfiguration is heaven’s interruption of our half-truths.
On the mountain, Jesus’ face shines “like the sun” and His garments become “white as light.” This is not a new costume. It is a revelation. The Church is showing us that Jesus is not merely near God, like the prophets; He is not merely sent by God, like the angels. He is the beloved Son, and His glory is not borrowed. It belongs to Him.
Then the Father speaks: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” That line is not decorative. It is everything. In fact, it is one of the clearest moments in the Gospels where God the Father tells us exactly how to relate to Jesus: not merely admire Him, but obey Him, trust Him, centre our lives on Him. The Transfiguration is a divine correction: we do not get to redesign Christ according to our preferences. We receive Him as He is.
Saint Leo the Great says the Lord revealed His glory to strengthen the disciples so that the humiliation of the Cross would not shatter their faith. That is pastoral genius. Jesus is preparing them for the sight of blood, betrayal, and apparent defeat by letting them see, even briefly, the truth beneath the suffering: the Cross will not be the collapse of God’s plan, but the strange doorway into it.
And notice who is there: Moses and Elijah. The Law and the Prophets. In other words, Israel’s whole story stands beside Jesus and silently testifies: He is the fulfilment. The entire Old Covenant is not a separate project; it is the road that leads to Him. The Transfiguration is the moment where the story of salvation becomes unmistakably personal: it culminates not in an idea, but in Jesus Himself.
There is also something deeply human in Peter’s response: “Lord, it is good that we are here.” Of course it is. Who wouldn’t want to stay? But the mountain is not our final destination. Jesus will lead them down again because the glory is real, but the mission is not finished. Lent reminds us that our faith is not built on chasing spiritual highs; it is built on following Christ even when the road is bumpy.
If we don’t understand this, we will be tempted to treat Christian life as either constant triumph or constant guilt. The Transfiguration refuses both. It says: Yes, the glory is real. And yes, the Cross is coming. And both belong to the one saving love of God.
The uncomfortable truth
The disciples fall on their faces in awe when the cloud overshadows them. Why? Because Jews knew what the cloud meant: God’s Holy presence. This is not merely an atmosphere. This is the living God drawing near.
And that reaction of falling down, trembling, silence, exposes something about us. Many of us have lost the ability to be amazed by God. Not because we are evil, but because we are overfed on noise and underfed on worship. We are constantly stimulated, constantly informed, constantly distracted, and slowly we become incapable of reverence.
We say we believe in the spiritual world, but we often live as functional materialists. We trust what is visible and controllable; we fear what we cannot manage; we reduce life to schedules, bills, routines, screens, and immediate outcomes. Even prayer can become “one more task,” and God can become “one more thing.” Then we wonder why we feel flat.
The Transfiguration is God’s gentle confrontation: You are living too close to the ground.
Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain “apart.” Away. That is already a lesson. You cannot see glory when your soul is always crowded. You cannot hear “listen to him” when your interior life is filled with competing voices.
Saint Teresa of Avila speaks relentlessly about recollection, learning to gather our scattered selves and come back inside, where God dwells. It is not a technique; it is a conversion of attention. Our generation is not only tempted by obvious sins; we are tempted by spiritual shallowness, a life spent reacting rather than contemplating, consuming rather than receiving.
And here’s the key: the Transfiguration does not make the disciples less human. It makes them more truly human, because it reconnects them to what we were truly made for: communion with God. Peter’s desire to remain is not childish; it is the deepest longing of our hearts: I want to be where God is.
The tragedy is that many people are trying to satisfy that longing with substitutes, entertainment, comfort, experiences, self-improvement, endless scrolling, and the list just go on. Yet, despite of all these things, our hunger still remains. The Transfiguration is Jesus telling us: “You are not hungry for more stimulation. You are hungry for glory, My glory, because you were made for heaven.” Lent is not about becoming grim. It is about becoming awake.
The Transfiguration and the Holy Mass
Here is where the Transfiguration becomes intensely relevant to the Holy Mass.
The mountain shows us something: reality is deeper than it looks. The disciples stand on ordinary rock under an ordinary sky, yet heaven breaks through. The glory was always there in Jesus, but their eyes were not always able to bear it.
This is profoundly connected to the Holy Mass.
Because if we are honest, the Holy Mass often appears ordinary: people arriving, children restless, readings, the priest’s homily, bread and wine, familiar prayers, the same gestures each week. It can look, and sometimes feel, like “just a religious obligation.”
But Catholic faith insists that the Holy Mass is not merely a gathering. It is an event where heaven and earth overlap.
If God gave us, even for thirty seconds, the grace to see what is really happening at the altar, the reverence of angels, the weight of Jesus' self-offering, His living presence in the Holy Eucharist, many of us would not be casually sipping coffee on our way in and chatting on our way out. We would not be half-distracted. We would stop glancing at our watch, counting the minutes. We would be, like the disciples, undone in awe. And we would long for time to slow down, even to stop, so we could remain in His presence.
The Transfiguration trains us for the Eucharistic vision: it teaches us that the most decisive realities are often hidden under humble appearances.
In the Gospel, Jesus’ glory shines through His humanity. In the Holy Mass, Christ’s glory is veiled under sacramental signs. The pattern is the same: God does not overwhelm us with sheer spectacle. He comes close in a way we can receive, unless we refuse to see beyond the surface.
Saint Thomas Aquinas is especially helpful here. He insists that in the Holy Eucharist our senses do not grasp the full truth, but faith does. What looks like bread is not merely bread. What looks ordinary is, in fact, holy beyond words. That is why the Holy Mass is never “just” anything.
And notice how the Transfiguration ends: “They saw no one but Jesus only.” That is what the Holy Mass is meant to do. Not to entertain us, not to match our preferences, but to bring us to the point where, beneath every hymn, every reading, every distraction, we can say: Jesus only.
Even the detail of the cloud matters. In the Transfiguration, the cloud signals the presence of God. In the Holy Mass, the “cloud” is not necessarily visible, but the same mystery is present: the Holy Spirit overshadowing, consecrating, making Christ present, drawing each one of us into the life of the Holy Trinity. If the disciples fell on their faces because God came close in a cloud, what should our posture be when God comes close on the altar?
This is not meant to shame anyone, especially parents managing children, or those carrying burdens. Jesus doesn’t shame the disciples either. He touches them and says, “Rise, and have no fear.” The point is not anxiety. The point is awakening.
Imagine what would happen in our parishes, in our families, in our soul, if we approached the Holy Mass with the expectation: “Something utterly real is happening here, even if my eyes don’t see it.” That is the beginning of reverence. And reverence changes everything.
So perhaps this Lent, the Transfiguration is inviting us to ask one practical question: Do I attend the Holy Mass as someone watching an outward ritual, or as someone stepping into the hidden glory of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Because if we truly believed what we say we believe, awe would not be rare. It would simply be our soul’s natural reaction when we encounter the Real Presence of Christ.
If this reflection on the Transfiguration awakened a deeper hunger to “listen to Him,” you can go further this Lent with Fasting and Feasting with Christ. Your support helps us continue this work of thoughtful Catholic writing.
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