By Ryan LeBlanc

My child made a friend at a red light the other day. In the 30 seconds the two of them had together, they smiled, waved, and challenged a paper-rock-scissors game. Making friends with a stranger in 30 seconds is an unusual skill – I sure don’t have it. I was astonished. Where did that come from?

We have all been there: astonished by something we suddenly see in our children, or sometimes our elders. Some spark we had no idea existed. My child thrives in the pool, or on the sketchpad, or in the kitchen. My elder breaks out of inactivity, welcomes someone who is different, holds on to hope after a devastating setback.

These “sparks” catch us by surprise, and yet in some way they should not surprise us. In some way, these flashes of insight are, in fact, who the person has been all along. Or another way to say it is that in these moments we gain insight into what the story of their life really is.

Three chosen friends of Jesus had what was basically the same experience on a much larger scale, when Peter, James and John went up a mountain and saw Jesus transfigured. The Catholic Church celebrates this moment on Aug. 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Feast of the Transfiguration – Vatican “Word of the Day” post

I’ve always thought it was a pretty straightforward, matter-of-fact type of Gospel story: while alone with his friends, Jesus’s appearance changes, including his clothes becoming dazzling white, and he chats with Elijah and Moses (see Mark 9:2-10, Matthew 17:1-9, Luke 9:28-36). OK, neat trick. Maybe I chuckle at Peter rambling thoughtlessly about tents.

My experiences as a parent, and as one learning from my elders, have shifted my thinking on this great mystery (the Fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary).

If I am astounded and awed at the developmental milestones of the young and the old, how much more must the disciples have been astounded and awed at seeing their teacher glorified as God himself? “What a change is here!” as Shakespeare would say it.

The plain old human being they have been hanging out with, starts generating his own light, as he did in the beginning when he said, “Let there be light.”

I’m not sure we understand what “transfigured” means here, because we don’t often use the word outside of this specific religious context. It sort of means a change of appearance, or at least that’s how I interpreted it. But the original Greek word which it translates – metemorphōthē – suggests something deeper. The word looks a lot like our word ‘metamorphosis’ – like a caterpillar that has changed into a butterfly.

So, it’s not just that Jesus looks different, but that he is different in some way. And yet, just as the butterfly is still in some sense the caterpillar, or just as my child’s openness to friendship was a part of his heart before, during and after the red light, this glowing, dazzling God is also still the plain old human being they’ve always hung out with. What they know of Jesus has changed, yet he is how he has always been and always will be.

To give my “word nerd” full rein, let’s keep going with this: metemorphōthē is made up of meta- (“beyond”) and morpho (‘change’). Jesus “changes beyond” when he is transfigured. Or is he “beyond change?” At this point, it seems clear that there is no good human word to describe what the disciples see in Jesus. ‘Transfiguration’ will just have to do, but it cannot express the fullness of that moment.

A parent trying to describe the strange-but-familiar experience of witnessing the person emerging in their child will similarly struggle to find the right words.

Maybe some of us could tentatively use lower-case-T transfiguration to describe those brief, poignant glimpses of who their child is becoming, and has been all along, but hidden. If we’re really paying attention, no words express the fullness of parenthood, and so maybe some word like ‘transfiguration’ will have to do. And, of course, the photo reels and trophy cases dedicated to our kids speak to our Peter-like propensity to hang on to the goodness of one moment.

I wonder if there is another level to this witnessing of revelation. Certainly, Jesus reveals his glory, the same glory which will be definitively revealed in his Resurrection. The sense of the Gospel is that he is giving the disciples a sneak preview to strengthen them as they head towards the trauma of the Crucifixion. On the way down the mountain Jesus does, after all, ask them not to share the story until after he has risen from the dead, a death which he continues to teach them to expect.

Remember that all his disciples, especially Peter, are not ready to talk about his impending death, yet he continues to reveal this intimate part of his true identity.

In the same way as the glory on the mountaintop, his friends cannot fully understand him unless they also experience him “transfigured” by the human violence of sin and death on the Cross. In the same way, he looks transformed on the Cross into something that is not only ungodly, but also inhuman – yet he is the same Christ. And finally, in the same way, the truth about Jesus is revealed in both his glory and his suffering, and his disciples are completely overwhelmed by either experience.

If I’m right, and we experience little transfigurations in which we glimpse the goodness and glory of others in ways that surprise and astound us, then maybe we might also learn who we are and always have been in moments of sorrow and suffering. I don’t want to pretend I’m sure, because my faith is weak, and suffering is large. But it could be.

In the past while, I have seen several important people for who they really are, in the love with which they left this world, amidst the sorrow and suffering which overwhelmed me.

I was astounded by the depth of my anguish, which you’d think I wouldn’t have been, and by the depth of their love, which I shouldn’t have been. For these beloved ones, their last earthly chapters have revealed to me the meaning of their whole stories – who they have always been, all along, and who they always will be.

This, then, is the takeaway from the Transfiguration of Christ – that Jesus always has more of himself to reveal to you than you think you are ready for, unexpected flashes of who he has been all along.

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Ryan LeBlanc is a teacher at Bethlehem Catholic High School in Saskatoon and a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Holy Family.