The importance of the Transfiguration is reflected in the fact that it is recounted in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke considered it to be a remarkable event in the life of Christ, which each should relate in his own way. This year, year B, we are offered Mark's version, which provides a series of graphic descriptions that suggest precisely what tradition tells us: that Mark presents the preaching of Peter. Although somewhat crude in form, and without great literary polish, Mark often gives details that really suggest an eyewitness.
Thus, in this account, we are told not only that Christ's garments looked like "white as light" (Matthew) or "glowed with radiance" (Luke), but that "turned dazzling white, as no fuller in the world can leave them.". Peter must have been very impressed by the whiteness of Christ's garments at that moment and sensed that they had entered a totally new, heavenly dimension. It also emphasizes more than the other Gospels the fear of the three disciples, particularly his own: "I didn't know what to say, as they were scared.". And only Mark tells us that the three disciples were arguing among themselves. What was meant by "rising from the dead"?.
It is about someone who was there, who saw the extraordinary whiteness of Christ's garments, who felt intense fear and who spoke with James and John about what happened on the mountain. Indeed, as the first reading tells us, precisely from the second epistle of Peter: "We had been eyewitnesses of his greatness. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when from the sublime Glory was transmitted to him that voice: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And this same voice, transmitted from heaven, is the one we heard while we were with him on the holy mountain." (2 Pet 1:16-18).
The Jesus who would soon show himself weak and despised, almost too ugly to be looked at, as Isaiah prophesied (cf. chapter 53), here gives a glimpse of his glory to his three closest disciples. Just as God the Father especially revealed to Peter the divine and messianic condition of Christ (cf. Mt 16:17), here he helps him to understand more deeply the pre-existent glory of our Lord. Through Peter, through the Pope, we better understand both the divine glory of Christ and how much he lowered himself to suffer for us. Through the Church we enter more deeply into the cloud of the mystery of Christ, which is dark, terrifying and full of light at the same time. Peter is able to say in his second epistle, with a plural that suggests the voice of the Church under the authority of the popes: "Thus we have more confirmed the prophetic word and you do very well to pay attention to it". (2 Pet 1:19).
