What ‘Sneak Preview’ Has God Given You?

At the breakfast table today, my husband asked what I was going to write about. I hadn’t a clue. “The Transfiguration is hard to relate to,” I said. I didn’t have any ideas on how it applied to my own life and/or how to make this Gospel relevant to others.

That is until I read a reflection on the Transfiguration by John Foley, SJ about God giving us ‘sneak previews’ in the spiritual life to encourage us when we feel discouraged and like giving up, and I realized this experience had happened the night before.

Not only was a vision and ‘sneak preview’ given, but my husband had literally asked me, “Have you ever had a vision of …. “ and we both responded “yes.”

God is the giver of visions to those who follow Him closely: visions of His promises fulfilled, His glory coming, and His victory over death in our lives – just like the Transfiguration. 

Today a few of Jesus’ disciples are led up a mountain to see the vision of His glory and resurrection. They are told to listen to Jesus, God’s Beloved Son, blinded with the dazzling light of His glory, and then led down the mountain again to their everyday life. They had to live in the awareness of what they temporarily saw until it became a reality.

The other message of today’s readings is that we will receive the blessing of God’s promise if we follow the way of Christ. Abraham is an amazing example of this. He believed God’s vision and promise of making him a great nation, of having numerous descendents as vast as the stars of the sky, and of him being a blessing to all the communities of the earth, and he staked his life on it – even when he didn’t see it’s ultimate fulfillment in his lifetime. Nonetheless, “Abram went as the Lord directed him”

So must we in this waiting, penitential time of Lent… seeing the future vision and ‘sneak preview,’ believing in the promise, finding encouragement and not giving up, and going as the Lord directs us.