Blessed Is She is hosting a link-up on transfiguration today, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. I’ve always loved this story because it resonates so well with my own spiritual life. The landscape of my life is made up of hills and valleys: hills where I experience transfiguration moments, when I am caught up in the mesmerizing beauty of God’s love and His light shines so clearly upon my life. But there always comes a time to come back down from the mountain, to descend into the reality of daily life with all its struggles and joys. God sends me back down on a mission: to live my life infused with the love and the grace He gives me in those mountaintop moments. The challenge we are all called to is to love and serve God in the everyday routines of our lives, not just the transcendent moments of retreat and reflection. We can speak words of love to God when His grace is fully evident, but we prove our love by staying faithful in the mundane realities of the daily grind.

But we need the grace of transfiguration moments—moments when we ascend the mountain seeking genuine connection with God, when we separate ourselves from the noise and distractions of the world to be with Him alone—to sustain us through the valleys. Jesus allowed Peter, James, and John to see His Transfiguration in order to strengthen their faith for the trials to come. He gave them a glimpse of His coming glory to bolster them through the great suffering that must come first, during His Passion. In the same way, He meets us in the quiet moments when we separate ourselves from our daily lives to spend time with Him. He gives us a foretaste of Heaven so that we might remain steady in pursuit of the ultimate goal, to join Him there in eternity. We must hold the memory of these moments tenderly within us, so that we don’t lose sight of what matters most. We won’t always have that clear mountaintop view, but we can keep a memory of the landscape ahead as we forge onward along the path.