From Peak to Path
Michiel Peeters - Last week, we heard the beginning of the journey of the Lord’s public life. The devil tried to tempt Him to make His mission more effective by not presenting Himself as a “disarming beauty,” but rather by “weaponizing” the attractiveness of His presence with certain forms of power. However, because of the intensity of His relationship with the Father, the Lord was so free that the temptations had no hold on Him.
Today, we witness an essential moment in the disciples’ path with their Lord. He had begun to tell them that “the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22). Now He takes Peter, John, and James, and goes up a mountain to pray. As He was praying, they saw Him in His glory.
Regarding this moment in the Gospel, the Greek Church Fathers emphasize that it was not Jesus who changed, but the disciples’ eyes that were enabled to see correctly, to see the depth rather than the surface they were accustomed to. Before His Passion, Jesus showed them who He really was, so they could travel the difficult path with this vision in their eyes.
The Christian experience of each of us contains an analogous moment. For the Christian experience is “a single, vital act…, composed of three elements.”¹ The first element is encountering something Christian: a human reality that is the “vanguard” of a community, ultimately the Church, that is, the guided community of the Lord’s followers.
The second element is the realization that this encounter, which has the form of something beautiful, fun, interesting, or cozy, is more than that—it is not just “something nice,” but something for life. This friendship is a friendship for life. I have run into the meaning of life here. It is God making Himself present here, before my eyes, before my heart.¹ To realize this is a grace: we call it the grace of faith. It is analogous to what Peter, John, and James experienced on the mountain: they were enabled to grasp the meaning of that presence, of that encounter.
We can fully understand why Peter would say: “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Let us stay here, for now that we have seen You as You are and realized that You are the meaning of everything—of the history of our people (as Moses and Elijah represent the law and the prophets), and therefore of the world and each of us—we can remain here. This is it; now we have the solution, let’s end our journey here. “But he did not know what he was saying.”
For the Christian experience—as an integrally human experience—has a third element: having encountered Christ and realized His meaning, one must still travel a road to verify, in all circumstances of life, what one has encountered. When we have Christ, we have everything, but what that “everything” is, we don’t know yet; we need to discover, in all circumstances of life, what it is that we have encountered (Giussani).
Therefore, the apostles must go down the mountain again, to go through all the circumstances that the Mystery will give them, carrying in their eyes what they have seen and in their hearts the realization: among us is the meaning of all this. What this verification produces in them and in us will be the way Christ continues His presence, His mission, in history: through those who live a Christian experience.
The author has not revised its text and translations.
