Fully Awake

One of the most common hurdles to living a vibrant life is fatigue. Weariness. Lack of sleep. If you’re a student falling asleep in an endless lecture, a mom handling a thousand little problems in a day (no elaboration needed!), or doing your best to keep pace with projects in your job, exhaustion is no stranger. As perpetual adorers, the struggle to ‘stay awake and watch’ with Christ during our vigils by night and day is frequently just that: a struggle! For those of us who do not wake up with vim and vigor, a stiff cup of coffee is absolutely essential if we are to ‘awake the dawn’ with praises of God! Today, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, we join good company in this battle for consciousness. Peter, James and John joined Our Lord on the mountain for prayer. There they were “overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory” (Luke 9:32). What did it mean for them to become ‘fully awake?’ They were more than just physically awake; they were overcome to the depths of their souls. Jesus was revealing to them, not only the mystery of the cross and His sufferings, but giving them a glimpse of His resurrected glory in which we also are destined to share. Not comprehending all of this at the time, the apostles nonetheless had seen the intertwining of the cross and their future glory.

As we strain to be ‘fully awake’ to the Presence of God in our lives, and the needs of others (even with a mug of coffee or two!) we can trust that unseen grace is at work in our hearts. The Transfiguration is a promise to us that though we only ‘know in part; then [we] shall understand fully, even as [we] have been fully understood” (1 Corinthians 13:12)