The Transfiguration
The Transfiguration
Frequently in the course of the liturgical year, the Church invites us to reflect on the story of the Transfiguration of our Lord. In all three of the synoptic Gospels, we hear that Jesus went up to a high mountain – that place of contact with God and was there transfigured in the presence of three of His disciples. In Scripture, God reveals Himself on mountaintops. In the Old Testament, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai and in the New Testament, Jesus gives us the Beatitudes after “going up a hill”. Jesus died on the hill of Calvary, where the fullest revelation of His saving love took place. With the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor, we have the revelation of Jesus’s divinity that shone through Him as a blinding light for Peter, James and John to behold.
St. Thomas Aquinas gives us his thoughts on the witnesses of this event. Two are from the Israelite history (Moses and Elijah) and three are apostles of Jesus (Peter, James and John). Moses and Elijah symbolize the past and the Apostles would carry the Gospel to the world, to signify the future. Moses stands for the Law, the Torah. Elijah stands for prophecy as he was perceived as the greatest of the prophets.
Why are Peter, James and John witnesses to this event? It is their love for Christ. As Aquinas explains, Peter loved the Lord the most. After the Resurrection, Jesus asks Peter: Simon, do you love me more than these? When Jesus receives a positive answer, He commands Peter to feed His sheep. Why is John there? Because he is the one whom the Lord loved the most. We know that through the Gospel that bears his name, John is referred to indirectly as the disciple whom Jesus loved. James, we know, was the first of Jesus’s apostle’s to show his intensity of his love for Christ by giving his life in martyrdom. James was the first martyr among the apostles. There is no greater love than one to lay down his life for another.
In our Vincentian vocation, we receive the light of Christ as we are called to holiness. Holiness is defined as that virtue by which a person’s mind applies all of its acts, all that we do to follow God in our lives. As Vincentians we are called to share the light of Christ in praying with and in serving our neighbors.
Holiness is to take on the nature of Christ and to become luminous with His grace in our love for our neighbors. At the transfiguration, Jesus’s radiance with the light of heaven entices us and excites us with the prospect of our transfiguration in Him.
Vincentians, as we spend our time, we spend our lives. Don’t wait to spend time in holiness. Jesus tells us: “Do not be afraid, I am with you always.” We do not need to open the door of our hearts to let Jesus in. Jesus, created us, He is already in our hearts. He is the one knocking on the doors of our hearts to lead us forward as we serve Him in serving our neighbors.
On Friday, August 6, 1999, Pope John Paul II celebrated a commemorative Mass for Pope Paul VI as this was the 21st anniversary of his death. St. Pope John Paul II concluded in his homily on the feast of the Transfiguration with these words: “ Like the disciples, we too must descend from Mt. Tabor into daily life where human events challenge our faith. On the mountain we saw; on the paths of life we are asked tirelessly to proclaim the Gospel which illuminates the steps of believers. St. Pope John Paul II shared these words that Pope Paul VI had planned to share in his reflection on August 6, 1978, the day he died, on the feast of the Transfiguration: “The transfiguration of the Lord, recalled by the liturgy of today throws a dazzling light on our daily life, and makes us turn our mind to the immortal destiny which that fact foreshadows.” St. Pope John Paul II concludes: Yes!
