Did you hear the story about the little boy who was riding his wagon on a sidewalk? Suddenly, one of the wheels fell off. The little boy jumped out of the wagon and said, “I’ll be damned!” A minister happened to be walking by, and he said, “Son, you ought not use words like that! That’s a bad word. When something happens, just say, ‘Praise the Lord,’ and everything will be all right.”  The little boy grumbled and put the wheel back on the wagon and started on down the sidewalk. About 10 yards farther, the wheel fell off again. The little boy said, “Praise the Lord!”  Suddenly, the wheel jumped up off the ground and put itself right back on the wagon. The minister saw it all and exclaimed, “I’ll be damned!”

We’re a lot like that minister. We believe completely in God’s miraculous, glorious power; we just don’t expect it to happen to us. What we know in our hearts is that we need God. We need His power. We need His awesome presence. Everyone of us can look down the road of our lives and see some crisis or challenge awaiting us—perhaps it’s a family crisis, or maybe it’s the threat of loosing one’s job, or concerns about one’s health, or about a loved one. We can all see the crisis or challenge and even though we know God loves us, we all know that in order to stand up to the moment and face what’s coming we need to connect again with the power and presence of God.

Many years ago our Lord Jesus had exactly that kind of moment. He went up the mountain to pray. He took with Him Peter, James and John. He knew that He was in the last weeks of His life. He could look out from the mountain to Jerusalem and see the crisis that awaited Him. He knew that in Jerusalem He would experience betrayal and denial. He had shared that concern with His disciples just a few days earlier...that He would be rejected by the elders and chief priests, the teachers of the law, and be arrested. A crown of thorns would be thrust on His head to pierce His brow, and nails would be driven into His hands. He knew all of that, and He knew God loved Him. But now in these moments on the mountain, He needed to connect again with the Father in heaven.

He prays...most assuredly about these things...what it means for Him and His friends, and as He is praying, His face began to shine, and all around Him a bright light radiated, and in the midst of that light, two men—Moses (the Lawgiver) and Elijah (the Prophet)—appear and they speak to Him about all that is to happen to Him in Jerusalem. Peter, James and John who were nodding off, wake up, squinting their eyes at the brilliance to see Jesus in this glorious moment. Peter wants to freeze the moment and commemorate the place, but faith-fulness will require following Jesus to the cross, not commemorating the place of transfiguration, which—fittingly—is not named in any of the Gospels.

No sooner than Moses and Elijah depart and the light of glory begins to fade, a cloud swoops over the place of transfiguration and a voice speaks to them:  “This is My Son, My Chosen ! Listen to Him!”  God gave Ten Commands in the Old Testament. In the New Testament God gives only this one command:  “Listen to this Chosen One”  who is able to carry us into the presence of God; who gives peace, joy, and victory over sin and death.

Come Saturday morning the chores were done and the boy stood ready in best clothes by the breakfast table.  His father reached down into his overalls and pulled out a quarter— the most money the boy had ever had at one time—and gave it to him.  After the usual cautions about being careful the boy was sent on his way.

The boy was so excited that his feet barely touched the ground all the way to the town.  When he got there, he noticed people were lining the streets and he worked his way through the crowd until he could see what was going on.  There in the distance approached the spectacle of a circus parade.  It was the grandest thing that the lad had ever seen.  There were exotic animals in cages and bands and midgets, acrobats, and all that goes to make up a great circus.

After everything had passed by where he was standing, a circus clown, with floppy shoes and baggy paints and brightly painted face, came by bringing up the rear.  As the clown passed by where he was standing, the boy reached into his pocket and got out that precious quarter, ran out into the street and thrust the quarter into the clown’s hand.  The boy thanked the clown for a marvelous circus then turned around and went home.

The mistake that the boy made is the same mistake we can make in our spiritual lives...we can end up settling for less than the real thing, for a portion instead of the whole, and all because we either do not believe in what God can do now, or because we do not look at or understand what we have been given. If we listen, we will discover glimpses of His glory as we act on what we hear, trusting that God has only our best interests at heart.

Brothers and sisters, I can’t explain to you what a holy moment is, nor can I tell you just how special and sacred events come to pass, nor can I even promise you that you will have such a moment if you only do this or that. But I can tell, and I do now tell you, that these moments are real, and they come to us most often when we open ourselves and make ourselves available to what God chooses to do to us, with us, and through us as we reflect the brilliance of His light and glory to shine and permit His love to flow through us by being the Heart, Hands, and Voice of Christ. It is then that St. Paul ’s words become true for us as we discover ourselves reflecting the Lord’s glory, being transformed more and more into His likeness with ever-increasing glory.  AMEN!