He went up a mountain with them to pray. The mountain is the earth that becomes vertical, the closest to heaven, where God’s feet rest, testifies Amos. Mountains are index fingers pointing to the mystery and depth of the cosmos; to the infinite, they are the earth penetrating heaven. Jesus goes up there to pray.
Prayer precisely penetrates God’s heart of light to discover that we are all beggars of light. According to a Jewish parable, Adam was initially clothed in a skin of light; it was his border of heaven. Then, after sin, the tunic of light was covered with a tunic of skin. When the Messiah comes, the tunic of light will emerge again from within the human, who is finally born and “given birth.”
As Jesus started to pray, his face changed in appearance.
Praying transforms: You become what you contemplate, hear, and love; you become like the One you pray to. Word of Psalm 34:6: “Look to God, and you will be radiant!” They look at the three disciples; they are thrilled, stunned, and able to cast a glance into the abyss of God.
A God to enjoy, a God to marvel at, and who has sown great beauty in every Son. Rabbi, how good to be here! Let’s make three huts. They are under God’s sun, and Peter’s enthusiasm, his astonished exclamation – how beautiful! – make us realize that faith to be bread, to be vigorous, must descend from amazement, from falling in love, from a “how beautiful!” shouted with a whole heart.
It is good to be here. Here we are at home. We are always out of place; elsewhere, it is not beautiful. Here, the beauty of God and that of the high and pure face of man has appeared.
Only twice does the Father speak in the Gospel: at the Baptism and on the Mount. To say: he is my Son, I love him. Now, he adds a new command: listen to him. The Father takes the word but disappears behind the Son’s word: listen to Him. Judeo-Christian religion is based on listening, not on seeing. You go up the mountain to see the Face and are sent back to listening to the Voice. You come down from the mountain, and the echo of the last word remains in your memory: Listen to Him.
The mystery of God is now all within Jesus; the Voice has a Face, the visible speaker of the Father; within Jesus: the beauty of living hidden, like a drop of light, in the least expected place; your heart now longs to stay in the mountain, but little that you know, your heart has become the mountain.