This mystery of the Transfiguration is a meaningful lesson for us about how God operates in the lives of those who are close to him.  Christ brings his three principal apostles, his best friends you could say, up the Mountain with him, and gives them a brief but powerful experience of his full glory, of his true identity as the Son of the eternal Father.  Christ knows what’s coming; he knows how much the upcoming events will challenge the Faith and morale of his friends.  And so, in this incredible experience, the Lord gives a gift to Peter, James, and John.  This experience on the Mountain would strengthen these three men for when they would experience Christ’s Passion, for when they had to face their own failures, for when they had to believe, to keep believing that Christ was the Son of God, even in the face of the events that would take place on Good Friday.  The memory of this moment would carry them through, when all human strength failed. 

There’s a theological term that describes what’s going on here (and it’s technical, so stick with me here): the kind of grace that the Lord is giving his apostles is called “prevenient…prevenient grace.”  It just means grace that comes beforehand; help that’s given in advance of when it’s needed.  It goes before you.  The Transfiguration is a prevenient grace for Peter, James, and John.  The apostles will need a lot of help not to collapse completely in the face of the Crucifixion.  Obviously they will receive profound grace and consolation three days later in the Resurrection, and that moment will prove that Christ is everything that he claimed to be, and that they weren’t fools to follow him.  But in the meantime, before the Resurrection, Christ gives his apostles, Peter, James, and John, a glimpse of the glory that he would show forth in full on Easter morning.  They don’t understand what’s going on at this moment, and the grace of this event is not for right now.  It’s for later.  It’s for when they need it.  And this grace would be enough for them.  Enough at least for them to be able to receive and accept the next grace: the grace of the Resurrection itself. 

God does this all the time.  He does it with you.  He gives you graces now that you won’t need until later; that you won’t even know you need until later.  He gave you graces last month that you’ll need tomorrow.  He is so good at seeing the whole picture, past, present, and future, that he’s always putting things into place so that we’re never without what we need.  It probably won’t be this dramatic.  But the Lord gives us Transfiguration experiences, every one of us, all the time.  In a sacrament well-received; in a kind word from a friend; in a quiet sense of peace; in an unexpected joy or success.  In these and so many other things, Our Lord gives us little glimpses of his glory, and his love, and his care.  And he gives them to us in advance.  His grace is prevenient.  He helps us to be ready for every need and every uncertainty and every fear.  His grace will already be there.  May your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, who have placed our trust in thee.