In the great mystery of the Transfiguration that we celebrate today, Christ brings his three principal apostles, his best friends, 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 upcoming events, especially his Passion and Death, 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 have to find a way to keep believing that Christ was indeed the Son of God, even when he had been killed.  The memory of this remarkable moment would carry them through, when everything seemed to be lost. 

I mentioned a theological term the last time that the Transfiguration came up in our Lectionary; about six months ago during Lent.  This theological term describes the kind of grace that the Lord is giving his apostles here, and I want to mention this term again today because it so central to what’s going on in this mystery, and because it’s something we actually experience every single day, so it’s worth us thinking about again.  This is what is called a “prevenient grace.”  It just means that it’s a grace that comes ahead of time, beforehand; help that is given in advance of when it’s needed.  It goes before you; it is pre-venient.  The Transfiguration is a prevenient grace for Peter, James, and John, because 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, because the grace of this event is not for right now.  It’s for later.  It’s for when they need it.  That’s why the Lord tells them not to go around talking about this yet.  “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”  This is for them, but it won’t make sense, even to them, until later.  They won’t know how to talk about this until they can see it in the light of the Resurrection.  Then they’ll understand.  But now, they have what they need.  And this grace would be enough for them, enough at least for them to be able to 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 gives you what you need to make it through to the next grace.  God is so good at seeing the whole picture, past, present, and future, and 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 kind word from a friend; in a quiet sense of peace; in an unexpected joy or success; most especially, in the experience of his true presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  In these 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 is already there.  In the words of St. Peter, “We do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.”