Lord, it is good for us to be here.

This Friday, August the 6th, in addition to serving as First Friday for this month, is primarily the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. We hear the story of the Lord’s Transfiguration twice each year: on this Feast day, and on the Second Sunday of Lent. Both of these days occur 40 days before a significant event in the liturgical calendar of the Church: the Second Sunday of Lent comes 40 days before Good Friday, and August the 6th comes 40 days before the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, on September 14th. This means that the Lord’s Transfiguration is intrinsically linked to His Crucifixion.
 
Our Lord chooses only three of His Apostles to witness His Transfiguration: Peter, James and John. These will be the same three who will accompany Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, so they are privileged to see Christ in both agony and in glory. This glory, however, is different from the glory of the Resurrection, which will come later. The presence of Moses and Elijah represents the Law and the Prophets, the fullness of Jewish consciousness, thus bringing the Old Testament to completion in the person of Jesus Christ.
 
Following the revelation, Saint Peter says,  somewhat lost in the moment, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” The experience was so significant that Peter wanted to remain in what Shakespeare would describe as “this bank and shoal of time.” It’s easily understandable. Who wouldn’t want to continue in a flash of ecstasy, especially when we consider what seems to be the ongoing ordinariness of our time with the Lord?
 
Mount Tabor is located in Galilee, in northern Israel. Atop the mountain there is today a stunning church, completed in 1924, which I believe to be the most beautiful of churches in all of the Holy Land, the Basilica of the Transfiguration. Beautiful gardens accompany the pilgrim on the approach to the building, with magnificent views of the Sea of Galilee to the east and Capernaum to the north. The interior, bedecked with warm, pale sandstone, reveals a “split-level” sanctuary. The main altar is raised up nearly a full flight of stairs, while the crypt altar is visible beneath it, down a shorter set of stairs. While I was there I felt, along with Saint Peter, that it was, indeed, good to be there. The road up the mountain is steep and narrow, disallowing tourist buses, so that you have to transfer to taxis to take you to the top. The taxis deliver you to the ever-present gift/souvenir shop, in hopes that you might part with a few shekels on your pilgrim way.
 
The Transfiguration confirms the Lord’s identity to the Apostles, as they have already seen at His Baptism and in His miracles. For us, this Feast invites us to consider not only the Lord’s true identity as Son of God, but our own identity as sons and daughters of the Father. It also invites us to contemplate a personal transformation into that identity through the work of the Holy Spirit, a mountaintop experience of spiritual renewal and rebirth, bringing us moments of prayer and insight in which we can say, along with St. Peter, “Lord, it is good for us to be here."