Transfiguration of the Lord

First Reading: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 97:1-2, 5-6, 9
Second Reading: 2 Peter 1:16-19
Gospel:Luke 9:28b-36
Lectionary Readings

Homily
When we attempt to communicate in language some powerful insight or some otherworldly experience which stirs the very depth of our being, only artists or poets manage to pull it off. They speak of their experiences in symbols and word pictures, paintings and sculptures.

Today’s scripture reading from Daniel is a case in point. The prophet’s powerful revelation, the insight of God’s presence breaking through in human affairs is like a Son of Man coming on the clouds, God’s throne aflame (like Elijah’s flaming chariot) – clothing sun-light bright, hair like snow-white wool. It is apocalyptic imagery—a message of revelation.

Luke’s account of the Transfiguration story is steeped in that apocalyptical language, a language of symbol and sign, of poetry and psalm. The word painting is full of the splendor of God’s presence in this Christ, fellow traveler with the disciples on the dusty road up to Jerusalem. This human Jesus’ appearance is changed like Moses’ at Sinai. His clothes become dazzling white. Moses and Elijah also appear.

The Greek word “appearance,” used twice, is the word for “theophany,” – revelation—divinity breaking through the veil of humanity. The “exodus” – the departure, the passage – is being discussed, the event of freedom about to be accomplished, fulfilled in Jerusalem. A cloud overshadows, connecting the overshadowing at the birth announcement and the overshadowing at the Jordan. Voices (insights, revelations) say, “The holy offspring to be born is Son of God;” and “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

The passage is beyond our “nuts and bolts” understanding. Like any insight, any revelation, it must be absorbed with our hearts, not our heads.

Peter, like all of us, was so overcome by this “insight,” this beholding of the human Jesus, whom he knew, and the venerable Moses and Elijah, whom he had venerated all his life, that he breathlessly blurted out, “Master, it is good for us to be here! Let us make three tents (the word is “little tent,” tabernacle.) But Luke writes years later that Peter didn’t know what he was talking about.

Peter wanted to keep, capture, this presence of God in their midst. Like all humanity, we want desperately to encapsulate God. We’ve succeeded where Peter failed. We’ve got Jesus in our tabernacles.

Last week when we spoke of this in one of our daily mini homilies, Sr. Nancy Jane recited a Hindu poem for me, of which I later got a copy:

O God, forgive three sins,
Sins due to my human weakness:

You are everywhere,
Yet I come to adore you here.

You are shapeless,
Yet I adore your form.

You need no praise;
Yet I offer these prayers.

God does put up with our desire to nail the presence down. We are forgiven as was Peter.

Thinking of this revealing event years later, Peter was able to write of the insight (as our second reading today pointed out), speaking of it as a moment of “majestic splendor” bearing witness as having himself experienced it “while we were in his company on the mountain,” and as he heard God’s voice, “This is my beloved Son on whom my favor rests.”

“Keep your attention closely fixed on that (message),” he writes, “as you would on a lamp shining in a dark place (perhaps our hearts?) until the first streaks of dawn appear and the morning star rises in your hearts.”


--Fr. Pat

Excerpt from "A Catholic's Companion: Liturgical Cycle C" (c)2000 C. Patrick Creed

Published by Watchmaker Press. Maggie Hettinger, editor