Transfiguration
Our Holy Father, Pope
Benedict XVI, notes that the Second Sunday of Lent traditionally
goes by the name of "The Sunday of Abraham and the Sunday of the
Transfiguration". This is because the first liturgical reading from
Sacred Scripture on that Second Sunday always has something to do
with the Patriarch Abraham, whom in the Mass we call "our father in
faith", while the Gospel narrative that is read is always one of the
accounts of Christ’s transfiguration (Mark 9:2-10; Matthew 17:1-8;
Luke 9:28-36; See also 2 Peter 1:16-18). The Pope remarks that
liturgically this placement of those texts occurs because of the
basic connection of the season of Lent with Baptism. It is the
principal time of the year when catechumens are preparing for their
Baptism at the Easter Vigil, and, at the same time, when those
already baptized are being restored to their baptismal innocence by
means of the penitential exercises of the traditional forty days,
and are getting ready for the renewal of their own baptismal
promises and commitments at Easter.
The Supreme Pontiff says,
"Baptism is the sacrament of faith and also of divine sonship. Like
Abraham, the father of true believers, we are asked by our Baptism
to leave the worldly securities that we have created for ourselves
and instead to place ourselves in God by means of trust. The
transfiguration then gives us a glimpse of our ultimate destiny,
when, due to our Baptism and our loyalty to its vows, in Christ, the
Beloved Son of the Father, and our listening to Him, we too shall
become authentic children of God."
Jose’ Granados says,
"According to Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, the transfiguration of the
Lord on the mountain was an ascent toward a higher grace not only
for the three disciples who were granted the favor of witnessing it,
but also for the other two witnesses, Moses and Elijah. This was
indeed the fulfillment of an old promise that was made to them when
they saw the glory of God on Mount Sinai. Here on Mount Tabor they
were finally able to converse with their Lord face to face. The
scene is linked with the vision of God and thus with the most
profound desire that moves our lives until we are able one day, as
Saint Augustine says, to rest and see, to see and love, to love and
praise." The theologian Klaus Berger says that what happened on
Mount Tabor was that God made visible to Peter, James, and John what
we now, in our apostolic faith, recite in the Nicene Creed: "God
from God, Light from Light". Many saints and thinkers have also
noted that the transfiguration made visible in Jesus, the new Adam,
the deeper meaning of the passage in the Book of Genesis: "And God
created man to His own image, to the image of God He created
him.."(Genesis 1:27).
Mountains
In the first volume of his
great work "Jesus of Nazareth", Pope Benedict XVI writes about
mountains in his treatment of the transfiguration, saying that in
the transfiguration "once again the mountain (Tabor) serves, as it
did in the Sermon on the Mount and in the nights spent by Jesus in
prayer, as the locus of God’s particular closeness. Once again we
need to keep together in our minds the various mountains of Jesus’
life: the mountain of temptation, the mountain of His great
preaching, the mountain of His prayer, the mountain of the
transfiguration, the mountain of His agony, the mountain of His
cross, and finally, the mountain of the risen Lord (the Ascension),
where He declares, in total antithesis to the offer of world
dominion through the Devil’s power, ‘All power in heaven and on
earth is given to Me’ (Matthew 28:18). But, in the background (of
these New Testament mountains) we also catch sight of Sinai, Horeb,
Moriah, the mountains of the Old Testament revelation. They are all
at one and the same time mountains of passion and revelation, and
they also refer to the Temple Mount, where revelation becomes
liturgy."
"When we inquire into the
meaning of the mountain, the first point, of course, is the general
background of mountain symbolism. The mountain is a place of ascent,
not only outward, but inward ascent. It is a liberation from the
burden of everyday life, a breathing in of the pure air of creation.
It offers a view of the broad expanse of creation and its beauty. It
gives one an inner peak to stand on and an intuitive sense of the
Creator. History then adds to all this the experience of the God Who
speaks, and the experience of the passion, culminating in the
sacrifice of Isaac, in the sacrifice of the lamb that points ahead
to the definitive Lamb (of God) sacrificed on Mount Calvary. Moses
and Elijah were privileged to receive God’s revelation on a
mountain, and now (in the transfiguration event) they are conversing
with the One Who is God’s revelation in Person."
Toynbee
There can be little doubt
that one of the main purposes of Christ’s transfiguration was to
prepare the Apostles for the coming shock and scandal of the cross
(Luke 9:31). It was as well a clear trinitarian event and
revelation, with the Father in the voice, the Son in the Man, and
the Holy Spirit in the cloud, resonating the previous baptismal
events involving Jesus at the Jordan River. Then too, it has links
to the ancient Law and the Prophets in the persons of Moses and
Elijah. It also is linked with the Jewish liturgical calendar,
especially the Feast of Booths or Huts (Sukkoth). It is also linked
with prayer, since Saint Luke tells us the reason Jesus took Peter,
James, and John up the mountain with Him was "to pray" (Luke 9:28).
Jose’ Granados explains how
"in the transfiguration the glory of God shines through Jesus’
journey in time, and expands to the pilgrimage in history of His
entire Church. The importance of this event for the Christian vision
of time was grasped by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee.
Toynbee understood the Tabor scene as the Christian answer to the
upheavals of time. When a civilization is in crisis, he says, there
are two different options: that of the archaist who wishes to remain
in the past and that of the futurist who desires to move quickly
toward a different tomorrow. If both fail, the temptation of
escapism emerges, of a withdrawal from history, one that flees....
According to Toynbee there is another option beyond these, the
Christian answer he calls transfiguration.... It consists of
withdrawal from the course of events only in order to return to them
to find in them the meaning that is able to save time from above by
anchoring the instant in eternity."
Saint Augustine, preaching on the transfiguration,
said "Peter did not then understand that ‘it is only through many
persecutions that we may enter the kingdom of God’ (Acts of the
Apostles 14:22) He wanted to remain on the mountain, but Jesus told
him that his remaining would only come later after his death. In the
meantime, he must imitate Jesus. Life goes down to earth to be
killed. Bread goes down to suffer hunger. The Way goes down to be
exhausted by the journey, the Spring goes down to suffer
thirst...and you refuse, Peter, to suffer?" The transfiguration
teaches each year some of the profound significance of Lent.