WEEKLY REFLECTION
“This is my chosen Son; listen to him." In today’s Gospel Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up the mountain (the Mount of Transfiguration) to pray. On the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the prophets Moses and Elijah appear next to him and he speaks with them.

The Transfiguration is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment, and the setting on the mountain is presented as the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place of the temporal and the eternal, with Jesus himself as the connecting point, acting as the bridge between heaven and earth.

The Transfiguration echoes the teaching by Jesus, that God is not “the God of the dead, but of the living.” Although Moses had died and Elijah had been taken up to heaven centuries before, they now live in the presence of the Son of God, implying that the same return to life applies to all who face death and have faith.

The voice from heaven was spoken to the disciples rather than to Jesus, and the end of this brief speech includes the directive, “Listen to him.” The disciples must listen to all Jesus says and, particularly, to the message he proclaims through his accomplishment at Jerusalem.

Which is what? That God desires freedom and life for God’s people. That God is with us and for us through all things. That God loves us and all of God’s children more than we can imagine. That God will do absolutely anything – including dying on the cross – to communicate this love and accomplish our release.

Yes, we are called to listen to him and, having been transformed by our listening, to then share the same message of freedom, love, release, and acceptance with others through both our words and deeds. Because at the end of this story, Jesus will address his disciples – then and now – quite directly, saying “You are my witnesses to these things,” thereby commissioning us to proclaim a message of forgiveness and freedom to all who may hear. Yes, let us listen to him.