Transfigured Prayer

The Catholic Liturgy for the 2^nd Sunday o Lent, March 17, 2019. Gospel: Luke 9:28-36. Theme: Transfiguration Prayer

If we were to search a database for the most common name given to Christian monasteries, we would discover that Transfiguration is top on the list. The reason for this is because monasteries are meant to be places of prayerful encounter with God, and are usually built up in the mountains or out in the wilderness. Away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Throughout our 2,000-year heritage of Christian spirituality, the Transfiguration of Jesus has been proposed as a lesson in what it means to have a prayerful experience of God, through Jesus, in the prayer form which we call meditation. Meditation is all about personal intimacy with Jesus, about coming to know Him as He really is, and in the process getting to know ourselves as we really are. This is something that Peter, James and John experienced. They went away with Jesus up into the mountains and gazed upon His true glory, resting in His divinely transformed presence. 

At the Transfiguration, Jesus’ true inner self, His divinity, began to shine through the flesh of his humanity. It changed his appearance; it revealed his secret identity so to speak. The disciples were caught up in this awesome revelation and when it was over, the Father’s voice directed them to listen to Jesus His Beloved Son. They returned to regular life re-energized to follow their Lord. They came away from that experience as interiorly changed men. Their relationship with Christ had been deepened, personalized, strengthened

This is a very good description of the form of Christian prayer called meditation.  It is also known by other names such as prayer of the heart, contemplation or sometimes just pondering.  And it is very different, worlds apart really, from the types of meditation we often hear about today and that you might be familiar with; such as yoga or mindfulness.  These forms of Buddhist or Hindu meditation tell us to empty our minds, to get in touch with our inner-energy, to attain self-mastery, in other words, to focus on ourselves. They do not direct us to a deeply personal encounter with our deeply personal God.

Christian meditation is the polar opposite. It is not about focusing on oneself.  It’s all about focusing on God and allowing Him to fill us inside with His grace, His light, and His peace. Christian meditation is how God can become real, meaningful and personal in our lives, instead of just being a God trapped in the pages of the Bible or remaining a formal faraway Deity whom we formally worship on Sundays.

By pondering the Transfiguration, we can learn how to meditate by looking at the experience of Peter, James and John on that mountain. So, let’s revisit the story for a few minutes with this in mind…

First, we intentionally go to a place where we can be alone and undisturbed. We need to get away from our daily routine and from the many distractions that life throws at us, so that we can devote quality time to our relationship with God.  That’s why Jesus brought the disciples away from the others and up the mountain, to an isolated place.

Then, we read or recall a story out the gospels or perhaps choose one of the 20 mysteries of the rosary, or even the text of a favorite prayer. We take our time with it, we ponder it, we reflect on it thoughtfully, ruminating over it, thinking about how it can relate to us.  In this step, we are like those three apostles looking at the transfigured Jesus and taking it all in. We permit it to penetrate our minds and ask ourselves what it means for my life.

We then ask Jesus to show us what He wants us to learn from this experience, listening for the voice of the Beloved Son speaking to the ears of our heart.  His words might come to us as an idea or an image that enters into our minds. We respond back to Jesus like Peter did, sharing with Him our thoughts, feelings and insights into what we have encountered in our prayer.

Then, after our meditation time, we return to our daily duties, treasuring this prayerful experience of Jesus in our hearts, just as Peter, James and John did coming down off that mountain.  We make a mental note of some insight or idea that came to us in meditation and try to apply it in our lives.

If we practice meditation regularly, we will become more aware of the presence of God living within us by grace. We will come to experience a personal transfiguration in our own lives as we gradually grow into the persons God created us to be.

St. Teresa of Avila, whom the Church honors as a great teacher of meditation, used to go around boldly declaring that the Christian who practices meditation for at least 15 minutes every day can be sure of reaching Heaven.  She was not exaggerating or making empty promises. The reason she was able to say this is because our faith is first of all about a relationship with God. And relationships are all about love. And love, as we all know, is fed by and blossoms from spending time together, alone with the one we love. And maybe that, after all, is really the best definition of Christian meditation.