The Transfiguration of the Lord has been proclaimed as a Lenten Gospel from the first days of the Church. Along with last week’s Temptation in the Desert, next week’s Samaritan Woman and the Man Born Blind, these Gospels form a sort of Catechism of our Salvation.
Today’s lesson is a meditation on the glory of the Lord, a foreshadowing of the Resurrection and that day at the end of time when the Lamb slain for our sins will take the place of the sun and the moon as the eternal light of our heavenly home.
A Manifestation of His Glory
As told by the Evangelists of the Synoptic Gospels, the Transfiguration is set on Mount Tabor, where the Lord’s face is seen to change in appearance and his clothes become dazzlingly white.
This unequivocal manifestation of the divinity of Christ was said by Saint Thomas Aquinas to be the Lord’s “greatest miracle,” not only providing us with a glimpse of heaven, but a reminder of who Jesus is when, as at his Baptism, a voice thunders from the clouds: “This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him”
Through Passion to Glory
But is there something more going on here than a mere revelation of the divinity of Christ, as hinted at by the Preface in today’s Mass, which gives us a hint as to what the full meaning of the Transfiguration really is. Here’s what it saysL
For after he had told the disciples of his coming death,
on the holy mountain he manifested to them his glory,
to show, even by the testimony of the law and the prophets,
that the passion leads to the glory of the resurrection.
What then is the greatest secret of life which the voice from the cloud insists we should listen to? What is the deeper meaning of the Transfiguration? That the passion leads to the glory of the resurrection.
In the Transfiguration, then, we have the first real glimpse of the Mystery which we will enact during the Sacred Paschal Triduum. That Easter Glory is always preceded by the Passion of Good Friday; that the dazzling light of the Resurrection is always preceded by the dark sorrow of the death of the Lord; and that Eternal Life is a gift which comes only through the Cross.
There are hints of this all through today’s Gospel. Who does Jesus take up with him to Mount Tabor and who falls asleep while he goes up to pray? The same three whom he will bring up to the Mount of Olives on Good Friday and who will fall asleep as he will pray in such agony that he will weep blood. Tabor is a rehearsal for Olivet, the same cast of characters, the same script. But Tabor is glory, while Olivet is passion. Two sides of the same coin, two dimensions of the same saving mystery.
The Exodus
And as the Lord appears transfigured, resplendent in glory, what is it that Moses and Elijah are discussing with him. They spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem we are told. His exodus, when like the Moses he would lead God’s chosen ones out of slavery, parting the waters of death that they might know a new life in a promised land flowing with milk and honey.
The slavery from which Moses delivered the Israelites was a servitude to Pharaoh and his chariots and charioteers, but there is one far greater than Moses here, for Jesus leads us from slavery to sinfulness, selfishness, and the love of darkness and death.
The waters through which Moses led his people was the Red Sea, but the waters through which Christ leads us are the waters of death itself, which after his victory will never be able to drown anyone ever again.
The new land into which Moses led the chosen people was Israel, but the land into which Christ leads us is the heavenly Jerusalem where there will never again be crying out or weeping or sin or pain or death.
Thus does the Lord save us by a new Exodus, of which the first is but a vague foreshadowing. As Moses lifted his staff and parted the waters of death, so Christ is raised up upon a Cross, by which all death is destroyed and all who are joined to him will live forever.
Through the Cross to Glory
Such is the meaning not just of the Transfiguration, but of all of life. Through that Cross and our participation in Christ’s suffering and death, we who have died with him in Baptism can know eternal glory with him in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Abraham learned this lesson in a shadowy way when God sealed the first covenant with him. By that Covenant Abraham, who with Sarah his wife, was childless and old, would become the Father of as many descendants than were stars in the sky and would inherit the land of Israel. But even this first covenant was sealed by a bloody sacrifice of undefiled heifers, goats, rams, turtledoves, and pigeons. And do you remember what happened when Abraham offered the sacrifice? It was dark, we just heard, and in the midst of the sacrifice there appeared a flaming torch, a sign of the presence and the glory of God.
The Sacrifice of the Altar
The Sacrifice we offer in an unbloody manner upon that altar today is a fulfillment of the sacrifice of Abraham, our Father in the Faith. It is the sacrifice of the flesh nailed to the Holy Cross and the Precious Blood which flowed from his pierced side. It is our only hope, the source and the summit of our entire lives.
Let us join the sacrifices of our lives with this perfect sacrifice. The harsh words we have forgiven, the cruelty we have put aside, the temptations we have resisted, all that we have given up for holiness, the kindnesses we have shown to the stranger, the compassion we have showered on those in pain, and the prayer we have offered in the middle of the night...let these sacrifices be mixed with the hosts on that paten, and mingled with the wine in that cruet, that your sacrifice and mine might be joined to his perfect sacrifice and transformed into the food we need for this journey, the very Body and Blood of the one who will return in glory at the end of time, and who will lead us home to that Holy Mountain where we will rejoice in the light of his glory forever.
Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector
