Feast of the Transfiguration
Knights of Columbus Convention Memorial Mass
Denver, Colorado
August 6, 2026
Lifetime Goals
From time to time, we ponder the meaning of our lives. We ask: Am I making a difference? What is the goal of my life? What am I trying to accomplish before life and strength run out? These questions circulate through our minds and hearts, especially when we consider the shortness of our lives. “Seventy is the sum of our years,” says Psalm 90, “or eighty if we are strong.” Sobering words for someone like me in his mid-70’s!
Yet, no matter how old we may get to be, isn’t it worth revisiting the dreams and goals we had in our youth – whether personal, career-related, or religious? When we return to our youth, though, it shouldn’t because we long for the good old days. Rather, we strive to discern in our memories what Pope Leo said to nearly a million young people gathered in Tor Vergata for the Jubilee of Youth: “Aspire to great things, to holiness, do not settle for less.” This calling has no expiration date. The Lord is calling us now to great things, to holiness. We must not settle for less.
Climbing the Lord’s Mountain
If we want to answer the Lord’s call to holiness – to pursue that goal truly worthy of our human dignity – we have only to climb Mount Thabor with Peter, James, and John, and there behold the Lord Jesus in his transfigured glory. There he stands, with the glory of God shining on his human countenance. There he stands, the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father, enveloped in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who makes them one. Conversing with Jesus are Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets that Jesus came to fulfill. So magnificent is this scene that Peter, James, and John are “all lost in wonder”.
For all its mystical beauty, the Transfiguration is neither a myth nor a dream, as St. Peter makes clear in today’s second reading. This event atop Mount Tabor is real – it was real then and it is real now. For the revelation of God’s glory shining on the face of Christ was meant, not just for a chosen few . . . it was meant for us. Today’s liturgy ensures that we understand this. In the Collect, we gave thanks and praise to the Father for the glorious Transfiguration of his well-beloved Son, the Transfiguration which confirmed the divine plan of redemption and wonderfully prefigured our full adoption and his sons and daughters. In the Preface, we will give thanks and praise because the glory that was revealed in Christ, the head of the Church, is meant to be fulfilled in us who are the Body of Christ, the Church.
This is our goal. Yes, it is good to succeed in our chosen fields. To find happiness in our vocations and daily work. To leave the world a better place than we found it. But unless we are leading a transfigured life capable of amazing the world, unless we are manifesting the glory of God in Christ Jesus, we are not aiming high enough!
Blessed Michael McGivney
Our founder, Blessed Michael McGivney understood this well. He didn’t settle for mediocrity in his priestly ministry, or in his preaching, or in his life of prayer. Nor was he prepared to settle for half-hearted Christianity among the youth of the parish, and especially, the men of the parish. One of the main reasons he founded the Knights of Columbus was to strengthen them in the faith so that they would be better husbands and fathers, to ensure that the core of their existence was touched and transformed by the powerful presence of Christ.
That is why he left us the principles – not just nice thoughts or abstract ideas – but principles springing from the heart of the Gospel, principles meant to be understood, prayed about, and put into practice: Beginning with charity, for it is sharing God’s love with others that we are transformed. United to the Triune God, we become resplendent when we are a catalyst for unity in the Church and in the world. And fellowship, for we attain the glory of holiness only when we walk together. Yes, Father McGivney wanted nothing more than that his Knights and their families would climb the mountain of the Lord, there to be transfigured from sin to grace and from grace to glory.
Bl. Michael’s vision shines forth with special brilliance in the Mexican Martyrs, brother bishops, priests, and laymen who were killed 100 years ago by a vicious, anti-Catholic dictatorship. Whether facing a firing squad or the gallows, these brave martyrs, many of them Knights of Columbus, didn’t waver. They didn’t look down. They didn’t look back. No, they looked up. They looked up at the glory of God on the face of Christ. “Viva! Cristo Rey! Viva la Santa Virgen de Guadalupe!”
And isn’t that the same hope that brings us together this morning? As we commend our beloved dead to the Father of Mercies, aren’t we praying with all our heart and soul that they have attained, or soon will attain, that full participation in the glory of God shining on the face of Christ? Are we not praying that God the Father will see and love in them what he sees and loves in his only begotten Son? We miss them and remember them with the affection of friends. We think, for example, for Ron Tranz, a brother knight, and former assistant supreme secretary, who died earlier this week. Let us be clear: no act of charity is greater than to pray for their salvation, to pray that their souls are purified by the glory of God.
Conclusion
Finally, let us not fail to pray for ourselves, our fellow knights, and their families, that day by day we may be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ whose radiant splendor was made manifest in his glorious Transfiguration, who lives and reigns with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.
