When an inventor has a million dollar innovation, they want to share it with someone, but not everyone. We can look at the Transfiguration like that. Our Lord had a great secret to share that would change everything. But he knew it was going to take Calvary to get there. He shares this incredible vision to only Peter, James and John. Why only them? Peter would be the first Pope, James the first Apostolic martyr and John the last Apostle to leave this world. We all need to keep our eyes on the end game and fully embracing the one true Church of Jesus Christ.

Jesus of course wanted his apostles to know that he had a power over nature that they could not imagine. It’s the ultimate revelation to Our Lord’s frequent admonition “Be not afraid”. Every time we contemplate this event in the Gospels it can strengthen our faith in the supernatural. Many saints have had visions of supernatural things. Sister Faustina, St. Margaret Mary and St. Dominic to name just a few. But allow me to raise two obstacles when it comes to supernatural visions. We can imagine these obstacles were obstacles for the apostles and for us too.

First, when the apostles saw our Transfigured Lord, they may easily have said, “Wow, that’s great Jesus, your body is miraculously arrayed with awesome glory. But what does your Transfigured body have to do with us?” They may have felt like the man with cancer whose hospital roommate is cured, but he is not cured. In other words, someone else’s good news is wonderful for them, but we may remain depressed because the good news isn’t our good news. Jesus revealed to his apostles how they would see him in heaven, that is IF they get to heaven. Remember two of these apostles were the same guys to whom Jesus said, “Sitting at my right and left are not mine to give.”

The second obstacle about a supernatural vision is that the awe and excitement wears off pretty fast. How often have we been incredibly touched by something we see that moves us? Maybe we even make a promise or a resolution to do something good or stop doing something bad. Every time we pass a roadside cross we may say, “I better slow down around this curve” but that cautious feeling disappears.

We all probably yearn to see supernatural things. Wouldn’t a glimpse into what the saints in heaven are like be awesome? You bet. We can pray for such but we need to be prepared to walk by faith. Even if we did see such a vision we would probably follow the apostles’ bad example. After all, they didn’t really live by faith in the resurrection until after they received the Holy Spirit. So we must pray to God our Father, whose feast day is always the first Sunday of August, and look around you. You may just get a glimpse of the supernatural when you least expect it.