Today is a Saturday, and I’m recalling a beautiful turn of phrase I encountered last Monday morning that lightened the load of the workweek ever so slightly. It provided me a dash of spiritual nourishment, and a boost of fortitude. It was from Jboy Gonzales, SJ, reflecting on the Transfiguration of Jesus in that morning’s episode of the Jesuit program Kape’t Pandasal.
Fr. Gonzales was thinking of the disciples who were with Jesus, and what caused them to react that way in seeing Jesus in a glorious form, why they wanted to build tents and tarry on the mountain. They wanted to stay in the moment, Fr. Gonzales says. It was to preserve and keep the glory of what they were witnessing.
Of course, it turned out they could not do that, at least not right then. (It would take a while, and profound sacrifices, but those disciples would eventually fulfill their desire to witness glory in perpetuity). What’s interesting is Fr. Gonzales’s takeaway from this failed attempt at prolonging a gratifying moment—he says that the temporary experience of the Transfiguration was meant to give the disciples encouragement for what they would face later on when they come down from the mountain:
Jesus shows us that the peace we find on the mountain is meant to give us strength for the work we do in the valley.
The work we do in the valley: that’s quite the elegant image for the experience of hard work; romantic and encouraging, perfectly practical for a Monday-morning reflection on the Gospel. For the Apostles in the first century, their work was the heroic heralding of Good things to come. For us in the twenty-first century, well, our work is often a war waged with spreadsheets and emails. But the phrase speaks to us all the same: the work we do in the valley is whichever honest and decent labor we are inspired to perform after witnessing glory on the figurative mountain, wherever we find that place.
It was a nice, small moment of joy for me to come across these words—I forget too often how inspiring the words of the faithful can be, not only for my spiritual journey, but also and even for my professional life. It reminds me that although some people of religious vocations spend much of their days and hours focused on matters that transcend this world, many of them do stay grounded, understanding and relating to the concerns of the rest of us here on a busy earth, even concerns as mundane as the burden of Monday mornings.