Today’s Gospel reading includes one of the most dramatic scenes in the Gospels – the Transfiguration. In the Transfiguration, Jesus offered His closest friends a glimpse of His divinity and a clear message was given to them by the Father, “This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him.”

Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle, recently stopped by Morning Air®  to offer a reflection on today’s Gospel reading, and how it applies to us today. Bishop Mueggenborg said:

“Jesus takes His closest friends – Peter, James, and John – and takes them up the Mount of Transfiguration. And this is really a culmination of the part of Mark’s Gospel where we are trying to answer the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’

We heard Herod pose that question to himself. We heard the disciples trying to grapple with who this is that the wind and the sea obey Him. But now, in this passage, we are able to hear God the Father answer that question definitively.  Jesus is His beloved Son. And our response to the presence of Jesus is to listen to Him.

[Peter, James, and John] may not have doubted the experience, but they certainly didn’t understand the experience. And that’s one of the great challenges for us, and maybe a great challenge during our time of Lent. To reflect more deeply on the wonderful experiences of grace that God has given us.

Like Peter, so often we are tempted to jump in and start interpreting events for ourselves, and really forcing the situation. And that’s what Peter was trying to do. He was trying to build booths, he was trying to interpret for Jesus how wonderful this was. And in the process, Peter was missing the point.

God the Father actually had to interrupt Peter and tell him to listen. Stop speaking and listen for a little bit. Sometimes that is us, when we immediately start to react to things before we really understand the movement of God’s grace in our lives. We can become so preoccupied with responding that we can end up responding in the wrong way sometimes.

It is always a temptation, when we are caught up with the desire to do things for God, that we don’t ask the question, ‘What does God want me to do for Him? How does God want me to carry out His will in the world?’ As opposed to, ‘What’s the work I want to do and then give it to God?’

Peter is really showing us that kind of really good-hearted eagerness, but it really becomes an obstacle and a distraction to the good work Jesus is wanting to do to Peter’s life on this mountain.”

Listen to the full reflection below:

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