A man named Steve Covey wrote a best-selling book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and one of these habits is being careful about making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. He learned this lesson from something that happened on a New York subway car one Sunday morning. People were sitting quietly, either reading their newspapers, dozing, or enjoying the silence. Everything was very peacefulโuntil a man and his children got aboard.ย Before long, the children were yelling, throwing things, even grabbing peopleโs newspapers. The father just sat there and did nothing, and Steve wondered how he could be so insensitive as to let his children annoy people that way. Everyone in the subway car was quite irritated, and finally Steve took it upon himself to say, with as much patience as he could muster, โSir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldnโt control them a little?โย As if coming out of a trance, the man answered, โOh, youโre right. I guess I should do something about it. You see, we just came from the hospital where their mother died an hour ago. I donโt know what to think and I guess they donโt know how to handle it, either.โ As Steve later wrote, โCan you imagine what I felt at that moment? Suddenly I saw things differently. Because I saw differently, I felt differently. I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didnโt have to worry about controlling my attitude or behavior. My heart was filled with this manโs pain. Feelings of compassion and sympathy flowed freely. โYour wife just died? Oh, Iโm so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?โโ (Bausch, Storytelling the Word, p. 234).
Steve had been understandably but wrongly assuming this man didnโt care how his children were behaving; when he discovered the reality behind the appearances, his attitude was suddenly and completely transformed. Learning the truth will sometimes have this effect upon usโand as Christians, weโre called to be open to this experience. Jesusโ Transfiguration allowed Peter, James, and John to see His divine glory for a brief moment. If we allow His Holy Spirit to be active within us, our lives will be transformed, and weโll become more capable of recognizing the truth and looking upon all the people around us with love and compassion.
Like many of you, Iโve seen Mel Gibsonโs movie The Passion of the Christ, and have found it to be a powerful and compelling testimony of Christโs love. The enormity of what Jesus suffered is shown in a very graphic way, and this truth can help us understand why Our Lord wanted Peter, James, and JohnโHis inner circleโto have this special vision of His divine nature. All three apostles saw Christโs agony in the garden, and John also witnessed the full extent of His suffering on Calvary as he stood beneath the Cross. Jesus wanted them to understand that His divine power could have spared Him from His Passion and death, but He freely endured it out of love; He wanted the apostles to be fortified by this vision on Mt. Taborโa powerful reminder that things arenโt always as they seem. During the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah spoke to Jesus about what He was to accomplish in Jerusalem; the three apostles overheard this conversation, though they didnโt yet understand what was being discussed. Nevertheless, this memory stayed with them, as did the Fatherโs words โThis is My chosen Son.โ Godโs glory is beyond our comprehension, but it does serve as a reminder of His trustworthiness and of our need for Him. The Book of Genesis describes how God made a covenant with Abram, His faithful servant (whose name would later be changed to Abraham), and sealed it with a vision of a flaming torch passing amid Abramโs sacrificial offerings. The Lord doesnโt use visions and signs of His immeasurable glory to frighten us or โput us in our place,โ but to invite us to live with Himโfor as St. Paul reassures us, our citizenship is in Godโs kingdom of heaven, and Jesus will one day transform our earthly bodies, making us fully capable of sharing in His glorious new life.
The time to begin preparing for our future transformation in Christ is here and nowโand one of the best ways of doing this is learning to see other people through the eyes of Jesus. The great American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, โIf we could only read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each manโs life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.โ In other words, knowing the truth about each person we encounter would instantly change our perspective and replace anger or suspicion with sympathy and acceptance. As it happens, we arenโt mind readers, so most of the burdens other people carry are unknown to us; however, we are Christians, and this is supposed to mean that we go out of our way to look for the good in the people around us, and assume the best about them, and pray for them when they anger or hurt or offend us. Maybe that person behaving in what we feel is a rude or improper manner normally doesnโt act that way, but is preoccupied with some sort of personal crisis. Perhaps the woman we consider aloof or stuck-up is still recovering from the wounds inflicted in an abusive relationship, and isnโt quite ready or able to trust other people again. Itโs possible the man we consider brash or obnoxious is plagued by deep feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, and is coping with them in the only way he knows how. Maybe the child we judge to be ill-disciplined and rebellious is actually crying out for love and acceptance after being put down again and again by uncaring parents. Perhaps the person who strikes us as dull and boring is in fact someone with a lot of interesting ideas and valuable talents to share, but has decided to withdraw and play it safe after many experiences of rejection. Jesus doesnโt expect us to know these things, and He certainly doesnโt want us to begin psychoanalyzing the people we meet or probing for their inner secrets, nor do we have to ignore our own needs and rights or refrain from politely correcting rude or annoying behavior. What Our Lord does ask is that we allow His grace to enter into every situationโspecifically, by saying a short, silent prayer for guidance, by trying to assume the best and giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, and by reminding ourselves that each person we encounter is deeply loved by God.
Jesusโ Transfiguration allowed Peter, James, and John to see Him in a new wayโa vision that not even the horrors of His passion and death could erase. If we open ourselves to the trans-forming power of Christโs love, we too will begin to see things more clearly and in a different lightโand this will prove to be a source of grace for ourselves and the people around us.