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How should we understand the “Transfiguration on the Mount”?

Jesus often went into the solitude of the desert that, in the stillness, he could search his heart and listen to his thoughts.

There, in the solitude, he grieved much over human misery, grieved over the pains of the people, grieved over their hatred and wickedness toward one another.

And he asked his Heavenly Father to grant him the strength to guide the sinful and confused human race.

One day, as Jesus, laden with his cares, rested by himself while his companions, exhausted from their journeying, napped, God sent two of the Youngest to him that they could appear before his mortal eye and thus bring him comfort and strength.

When Jesus beheld the faint outline of the radiant forms, he called out: "Father, I thank Thee!"

His cry awoke his companions, and by the suddenness of their arousal they kept a fleeting remembrance of the glory they had seen. For while their bodies rested, their spirits had seen and known the radiant forms.