10 things you need to know about Jesus’ Transfiguration.


The Gospel reading to commemorates the mysterious event known as the Transfiguration.

Here are 10 things you need to know.

1. What does the word “transfiguration” mean?
Before looking at the Transfiguration itself, it’s important that we look at what happened immediately before it in Luke’s Gospel.

2. What happened right before the Transfiguration?
The phrase “kingdom of God” can also refer to other things, though, including the Church–the outward expression of God’s invisible kingdom.
The kingdom is embodied in Christ himself and thus might be “seen” if Christ were to manifest it in an unusual way, even in his own earthly life.

3. Did such a manifestation occur?
Pope Benedict states that it has been . . .
Some—that is to say, the three disciples who accompany Jesus up the mountain—are promised that they will personally witness the coming of the Kingdom of God ‘in power.’
On the mountain the three of them see the glory of God’s Kingdom shining out of Jesus. On the mountain they are overshadowed by God’s holy cloud. On the mountain—in the conversation of the transfigured Jesus with the Law and the Prophets—they realize that the true Feast of Tabernacles has come. On the mountain they learn that Jesus himself is the living Torah, the complete Word of God. On the mountain they see the ‘power’ (dynamis) of the Kingdom that is coming in Christ” (Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, p. 317).
We thus may have the key to understanding Jesus’ mysterious statement just before the Transfiguration. He wasn’t talking about the end of the world. He was talking about this.
In fact, Luke notes that the Transfiguration took place “about eight days after these sayings,” thus stressing its proximity to them and suggesting that it was the fulfillment of this saying, concerning the fact that some of them would see the kingdom of God. Mark gives a different number of days, saying it was “after six days” (Mk. 9:2), but these both approximate a week.

4. Who witnessed the Transfiguration?
5. Where did the Transfiguration take place?
Luke states that Jesus took the three “on the mountain to pray.”
6. Why did the Transfiguration take place?
The Catechism explains it this way:
Christ’s Transfiguration aims at strengthening the apostles’ faith in anticipation of his Passion: the ascent onto the ‘high mountain’ prepares for the ascent to Calvary.
Christ, Head of the Church, manifests what his Body contains and radiates in the sacraments: ‘the hope of glory’.

7. What does Luke–in particular–tell us about this event?
He notes that this happened while Jesus was praying.
He mentions that Peter and his companions “were heavy with sleep, and when they wakened they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.”

8. Why do Moses and Elijah appear on the mountain?
The fact that these two figures “spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” illustrates that the Law and the Prophets point forward to the Messiah and his sufferings.

9. Why was Peter’s suggestion misguided?
The experience of the Transfiguration is meant to point forward to the sufferings Jesus is about to experience. It is meant to strengthen the disciples faith, revealing to them in a powerful way the divine hand that is at work in the events Jesus will undergo. This is why Moses and Elijah have been speaking “about his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
As a seeming rebuke of this, a theophany occurs:

10. What can we learn from this event?
They may have been meant only as momentary glimpses of the joy of heaven to sustain us as we face the challenges of this life, to help strengthen us on the road that will–ultimately–bring us into the infinite and endless joy of heaven.

Andrew Koroma.


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