The Transfiguration was a moment of revelation, a grace-filled moment of clarity for the disciples. But it was only a moment along the journey of their lives.

The all-powerful and unknowable God revealed himself gradually to his people. God showed himself through the majesty and beauty of his creation. In spite of humanity’s sin and folly, God still revealed his care for all creatures. He made covenants with the upright, like Noah and Abraham. He blessed his people with a leader, (Moses), a Law, and a Land. He sent judges to seek the right, kings to rule with honor, and prophets to return the lost. Along the way, there were divine moments of great clarity.

All of God’s activity points to Jesus, for he sums up the totality of God’s revelation. In Christ, we know the Father intimately. In Christ, we know his Word, his will, his purpose. In Christ, we know his love. Like the Transfiguration, we may see our life with the Father in Christ snap into focus. But, there will be other times away from the mountain, times of struggle and darkness, times of reflection and prayer. We need this time to fully realize so overwhelming a gift as the Father’s grace.

Just as in our lives, so to the Church needs time to unfold the full value of God’s revelation in Christ. The totality of revelation lies in the Church, but its significance has not been made fully explicit. While revelation ended with the death of the last apostle, the Church constantly realizes and proclaims anew what intimacy with the Father in Christ truly means. The Church proclaims Christ’s transfiguration as it is transfigured by God’s grace.

Jesus was sent by the Father to sow the seeds of the kingdom in his ministry on earth. Surely, the sowing did not involve only his verbal teaching. His life, his every act, particularly his dying and rising, became a proclamation of Good News for the whole world. In him was the kingdom of God inaugurated. It began to be realized in his being born into this world. Then, he sent his disciples (and all who would come after them) to continue the sowing of that seed by which the kingdom would come about for the whole universe. The Church, you and me, are now responsible for the sowing and for the harvesting. What that means is that our families and our parishes are responsible for that work.

The work of evangelization has been assigned to the community of believers who come after Christ. None of us can claim to be exempt from that charge. It is a task laid upon each of us: to make known the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of the universe.

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, travels all over the world in the work of evangelizing. He does not cease ever to proclaim the truth that is in Jesus Christ. He says that he comes as a pilgrim pope or father. He comes to confirm the local churches in their ministry of evangelizing. To all the churches has been entrusted the task of sowing the seed of the word of God in all hearts. The pope wants to re- sow that seed in our hearts and in the hearts of all persons of good will. No soil is unworthy of his zeal and of his energy.

Professional missionaries, clergy, religious, and laity go out to the whole world to announce that Jesus Christ loves all people. Professionals and volunteers in the parishes have all kinds of ways of announcing the Good News. Homilies, catechism classes, all faith-formation efforts, youth ministry, outreach to the poor and to the needy, ministries of presence and of compassion: Jesus is made present in the sacred works that come from our witness. The local parish, the faith-sharing group to which you belong, the family within which you live, all are agents of evangelization, of seed-sowing and of harvesting. Every Christian community needs to be an apostolic community, one that bears the Word to others in some way.

We are never limited by our personal or corporate inadequacies. The word of God will accomplish the purposes for which it was sent. Ours is only to spread it far and wide and to leave the rest to the Lord. There will surely be obstacles to the growth. Pray that we ourselves do not become those obstacles.