If I am honest, I sometimes forget the message of the Sunday homily five minutes after Mass has ended. Yet, there are also times when a reflection that I heard many years ago was so powerful that I can remember vividly where I was and how I felt when I heard it. When I prayed with the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent, specifically the Gospel (Mark 9:2-10), I had such an experience.
It was 35 years ago, and I was participating in a Lenten retreat in North Carolina. The final reflection of the weekend was on the Gospel account of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-10). I had always loved the Transfiguration story and previously thought that the “miracle” of the story was that Jesus was changed so that Peter, James, and John were able to catch a glimpse of his divinity and to hear God’s voice affirming that Jesus was his beloved son.
However, the priest who was leading the retreat (theologian and storyteller John Shea) offered a different twist on the story, suggesting that the apostles were the ones who were changed. According to Shea, on this occasion Peter, James, and John were transformed so that they could see Jesus as he truly was, and they could see themselves as God saw them. Furthermore, according to Shea, we are all invited to see ourselves and one another as God sees us: “shining brilliantly.” And the voice that declared, “This is my beloved son”? Shea invited each of us to hear God’s voice addressing us, individually and personally, as his “beloved” son or daughter.
I am sure there were many other insights shared that weekend, but what I remember is how I felt as I tried to imagine what it would be like to see every person, including myself, as a brilliant reflection of God and to embrace my own identity as a beloved daughter of God. I found the thought that God considered me his “beloved” daughter amazing and profoundly humbling. When I tried to imagine every person that I knew as a beautiful reflection of God, I felt overwhelmed.
The Franciscan-hearted Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, described a similar experience he had while standing on an ordinary street corner in Louisville, KY. Merton’s poetic description expresses eloquently the sense of awe and wonder that I experienced 35 years ago in that retreat center in North Carolina:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people… that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
“Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts, where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time.” - Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Each time I read this Gospel, my prayer is the same: Loving God, grant that I may see myself and other people as we are in Your eyes. May I understand and believe that we “are all walking around shining like the sun.” May I humbly and joyfully embrace and live the truth that we are all God’s beloved daughters and sons!