Mountains are important places in Sacred Scriptures. In fact, it has been suggested that a retreat could be designed around the mountains of Scripture. There is Mount Sinai, the mountain of morality; Mount Carmel, the mountain of decision; Mount Gilboa, the mountain of transition and change; the Mount of Beatitudes, the mountain of discipleship; the Mount of Olives, the mountain of suffering; Mount Calvary, the mountain of redemption, and the unnamed mountain of the Great Commission.
Today’s Gospel reading is about Mount Tabor, the mountain of the Transfiguration, which we can call the mountain of worship. It is about the three apostles who were there at this sacred moment and it is about all of us.
Peter, James and John, the three apostles privileged to be there, had a startling experience of Jesus’ face and clothes changed and Moses and Elijah flanked Him. Then came the voice of the Father, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.” Those words of the Father are the heart of this moment. This experience will enter the deep memory of the apostles and will sustain them in the difficult times ahead because these same apostles will be with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
For all of us, Mount Tabor represents the mountain of worship. Here at Mass we rise into the very presence of God. In our life, we all need the mountain of worship to help us in the valley of work we have to do here on earth. All of us need to move back and forth between the mountain and the valley. It is like breathing.
On the mountain of worship, we inhale the power, grace and truth of Christ. Here we are reminded that we are creatures and instruments of God and that our life comes from and will someday return to God. In the valley we exhale the life and spirit of Christ to those with whom we live and work. On the mountain we draw in spiritual life and vitality. In the valley we breath out that life to others.
There is always a tendency to emphasize one over the other. There is the desire of Peter to stay on the mountain. Jesus was there in radiant power with Moses and Elijah from the past. The problems of the world were left behind. Peter wanted to freeze that moment and hold it like a snapshot. We all have had such moments and for some people, their Christian faith is exclusively that, a retreat, an interlude and an escape.
But then there is the valley. The valley is where people live, work and navigate their struggles. Many of these people take no time for the mountain but they desperately need its grace, its moral clarity and its spiritual power. Without the mountain of worship, we lack spiritual resources and become spiritually impotent, easily burned out and depleted without a moral compass. Without the valley, we can end up with a religion of escape or private religious experience that transforms nothing, redeems no one and is isolated from the world. We all need the mountain and we all need the valley
. Jesus knew both. He went to the mountain and brought its peace and grace to the valley. In fact, Raphael’s famous painting of the Transfiguration shows Jesus virtually floating in mid-air, glorious and splendid. The bottom of the painting depicts the valley where a father is pleading to the other apostles to cure his possessed son.
The words of the Father on the mountain, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him,” are also directed to us. Do we listen to Him? The Lord speaks to us in many ways at Mass but also through events in our life. The Lord can speak to us through the failures of our life. The Lord speaks to us through the teachings of the Church. The Lord can speak to us through illness. Tragedy can carry the word of the Lord to us. Are we willing to listen to the Lord when He is calling us through our life experience to go another way or to endure suffering and pain as a path to deeper life and a glory like His?
For all of us, the mountain of worship is the place of power and vision. For each of us it is our very personal place where we listen to the Lord. Lent is a time to bring balance back into our life. It is a season to journey to the mountain of worship at Mass and to recommit ourselves to the work of the valley. Our spiritual life is shaped by both.
Let’s not therefore conduct ourselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Let’s understand that, as we will say at the Preface, “the Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection.” Let’s stand firm in the Lord and that way we will at last attain that glory whose beauty Jesus shows us today in his own Body.
