There are sides of us that only our best friends have seen, or things about us that only they know. Best friends are privileged because they get to see the real and the whole of us, not just the image that we like to project to the rest of society. This is what happened at the Transfiguration in the Gospel this Sunday: Jesus revealed Himself to three of His closest friends – Peter, James and John – in a way He had not done before . He revealed Himself as they would know Him in heaven. For that brief period of time, the privileged three disciples saw His heavenly glory on earth. It was both to strengthen them for what was to come (suffering and death) and to give them a glimpse of the heavenly life to which they were called. It was a moment of special grace and revelation.

We don’t have to be Peter, James or John to witness Christ’s Transfiguration. All of us are given opportunities in our day-to-day lives to see Jesus’ power and glory by looking at the world around us. Jesus wants us to be His best friends, to see Him as He really is. Just as His face shone like the sun and His clothes dazzled with whiteness during the Transfiguration, He wants to be for us a bright, shining light to follow and to give us hope, especially when darkness seems to envelop us. He is a light that never dims, a light that never disappears. It is just sometimes, we allow ourselves to lose sight of that light. But like a true best friend, Christ is just waiting for us to call to bring light back into our lives.