According to tradition, the mountain where Jesus was transfigured is Mt. Tabor, located about eleven miles west of the Sea of Galilee.  Though the Gospels describe it as a “high mountain,” it’s only 1,886 feet high, but its domed shape sticks out from the flat land around it.

The Transfiguration of Jesus occurred at a time when Jesus was preparing his apostles for what was to come—his suffering and death by crucifixion (see Matthew 16: 21-23).  The apostles didn’t want to hear of it and St. Peter, in fact, resisted this prediction as anyone would who loves another and who would never want to see them suffer. He said: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”  But Jesus rebuked him saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.”

Shortly thereafter, Jesus took Peter, along with the brothers James and John, up Mt. Tabor where “he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light” (see Matthew 17: 1-8).  It’s as though Jesus wanted to soften the harsh reality of his impending suffering and death by giving the apostles a taste of his glory.

We often find this same dynamic in our own lives.  Dark times of valleys and desert plains are often preceded and followed by mountain-top experiences.  Our lives are a series of ups and downs.  If we were always on top of the world we would, like Peter, want to erect tents in order to remain there.  But God has bigger and better plans for us—the heights of heaven.

In his “Spiritual Exercises,” St. Ignatius writes about the interplay of heights and depths as he describes the consolations and desolations that we normally experience in our spiritual lives. In his “Rules” for discerning the different spirits or movements of our hearts, he writes that God allows us to enter valleys of darkness and to feel desolate in order “to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves, so that we may have an intimate perception of the fact that it is not within our power to acquire and attain great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation; but that all this is the gift and grace of God our Lord” (#322).

In other words, God knows how we often seek for good spiritual feelings or consolations rather than the God who gives them.  So, to humble us and teach us that the “transfiguration moments” in our lives are not the result of something we do but are pure gifts, he does not allow us to erect tents on the mountains of consolation.  Like the apostles, strengthened by the experience of the Transfiguration, we are sent back to the plains and valleys of our daily lives with the hope and light that sustain us as we journey to heaven.