By Clement Harrold

August 7, 2025

No doubt the Transfiguration is familiar to many of us from our Thursday rosary. And yet, for some of us, this fourth luminous mystery can feel quite perplexing. Why is the Transfiguration such a big deal? What are Moses and Elijah doing there? And why does Peter propose pitching tents? Reflecting on these questions will help us to deepen our appreciation for the true power and beauty of this pivotal event in the life of Christ.

Destined for Glory

Let’s begin with a quick recap: the scene of the Transfiguration begins with Jesus leading His closest disciples up Mount Tabor (see Matt 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36). There Jesus unveils Himself in dazzling light, and He is joined by Moses and Elijah, representatives of the law and the prophets He has come to fulfill. At this extraordinary sight, Peter seems to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind: he offers to set up three tents. Moments later, Peter is interrupted by a voice speaking from the cloud, and the next thing the disciples know, they are alone again with Jesus.

The first key to understanding what’s going on in this episode is that the Transfiguration offers us a glimpse of the joy that awaits us. In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas puts it this way: “Christ wished to be transfigured in order to show men His glory, and to arouse men to a desire of it” (ST III.45.3co). Aquinas goes on to describe how the Transfiguration, like Christ’s Baptism, is a Trinitarian event: the Incarnate son is arrayed in glory; the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a bright cloud; and the Father is heard in the voice (see ST III.45.4.ad2).

Drawing on this passage from Aquinas, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the Transfiguration in striking terms as the sacrament of our Resurrection. That is to say, the Transfiguration serves as an outward sign of the transformation for which our mortal bodies are destined: “The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he ‘will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body’ [Phil 3:21]” (CCC 556).

This shows us that Transfiguration is fundamentally a mystery of hope and joy. Indeed, it gives us the confidence that although we are “treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7), even these earthen vessels—that is, our frail bodies which can cause us so much hardship and grief—will one day be transfigured just like Christ’s.

More Than a Camping Trip

So far so good, but  we must remember that there is another, more sobering lesson which the Transfiguration also contains. The Catechism reminds us, “[this mystery] also recalls that ‘it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God’ [Acts 14:22]” (CCC 556). While the Transfiguration points us to the glory that awaits us, it also summons us to embrace the path of suffering which still lies between us and heaven.

In the first installment of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on this theme with particular reference to the figure of Peter. In doing so, the pontiff proposed that the Transfiguration takes place around the time of the Jewish Feast of Booths.

Also known by its Hebrew name Sukkot, this week-long autumn festival involved living in tents to commemorate the makeshift huts the Israelites dwelt in during their forty-year Exodus in the desert (see Lev 23:39-43; cf. Exod 34:22). Significantly, the festivities also looked forward to a time of future fulfillment when the Messiah will come, and all the nations will assemble to celebrate the feast (see Zech 14:16-19; cf. Hos 12:9).

In Pope Benedict’s estimation, Peter’s somewhat clumsy proposal to pitch camp should therefore be understood in the context of the Feast of Booths and everything it portends: the dawn of a new messianic age marked by the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, and by the righteous souls worshiping God from their tents. This interpretation sheds light on Peter’s desire to pitch tents: he wants the Transfiguration to mark the beginning of Christ’s triumphant reign on earth.

But Peter still has much to learn about the true nature of the Son’s paschal mission. At the heart of that mission lies the Exodus—identified in Luke’s Gospel as the subject of Our Lord’s conversation with Moses and Elijah (see Luke 9:30-31)—which awaits Jesus in Jerusalem. This new and greater Exodus will be a deliverance not from Egypt but from sin; a journey not into the physical land of Canaan, but into the eternal homeland of heaven. This time, moreover, the journey will be defined not by the blood of lambs smeared on doorposts, but by the blood of the Eternal Lamb poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

The Way of the Cross

None of this is easy for Peter to understand. Just a few days earlier, he was making an impassioned protest against Jesus’s first prediction of His impending death (see Matt 16:21–23). Now, on the heights of Tabor, the insecurities of his heart are once more laid bare. Peter struggles to understand why this is the way things have to be. Why can’t Jesus inaugurate His Kingdom now, without ever facing that dreadful Passion which awaits Him? Why can’t the consolations of the mountaintop abide forever and never fade? Why must they come back down the mountain?

Particularly when we are in pain, we can feel very much like Peter: desperately wanting heaven, but questioning God’s chosen means of getting us there. In these seasons of trial, the Transfiguration challenges us with its reminder that Jesus could have ended our suffering in an instant—and soon, very soon, He will—but instead He redeemed it. By entering fully into our human condition, He harnessed and hallowed our pain, transforming the penalty for Adam’s sin into an instrument of divine love.

In His infinite wisdom, Jesus chose (and chooses) the way of the Cross as the most fitting and beautiful way to redeem the world. Not only that, but He invites all of us to share in this Cross, yet to do so with confident hope in the inexhaustible ocean of joy that awaits us: “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17).

On Mount Tabor, the God-man gives us a glimpse of this glory beyond all comparison, in order to sustain us on our pilgrim journey:

Now in order that anyone go straight along a road, he must have some knowledge of the end: thus an archer will not shoot the arrow straight unless he first see the target. Hence Thomas said (John 14:5): “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?” Above all is this necessary when hard and rough is the road, heavy the going, but delightful the end. . . . Therefore it was fitting that He should show His disciples the glory of His clarity (which is to be transfigured), to which He will configure those who are His . . . (ST III.45.1co)

By entering more deeply into the mystery of the Transfiguration, we call to mind our heavenly destination, and we implore our merciful Savior—the Risen One who still bears His wounds of love—to give us the grace to arrive safely home.

Further Reading

Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol I: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (Doubleday, 2007)

Megan Hjelmstad, Offer It Up: Discovering the Power and Purpose of Redemptive Suffering (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2025)

About Clement Harrold

Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.