While Christ teaches and prepares His disciples during His public ministry for the Kingdom of God,...
Reflections on the readings for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord (August 6, 2022): DN 7:9-10,13-14; PS 97:1-2,5-6,9; 2PT 1:16-19; LK 9:28:36
MISSIO offers “Preaching Mission,” as a homily help, providing connections to mission from the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
He allows three of them to have a unique glimpse of Him in His glory.
On this feast we commemorate the wondrous occasion when our Savior brought the three Apostles who were nearest to Him to join Him for a stunning revelation. “Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up a mountain to pray. While He was praying His face changed in appearance and His clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with Him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His exodus that He was going to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:28-31). The next thing we hear is that the Apostles had fallen asleep and, when they woke up Peter immediately suggested making tents, as though to contain Jesus, Moses, and Elijah in this miraculous moment. Both the idea of falling asleep in the presence of Christ glorified as well as the two great Jewish leaders and expecting them all to stay there may seem unfathomable to us. Yet the Apostles, especially Peter, say or do many things that with our hindsight of two thousand years seem inappropriate. While now we can say that Jesus was showing His true self, His followers had yet to experience His passion, crucifixion, or rising up from death. St. John Damascene described the remarkable event by saying that Jesus Christ “was transfigured, not by acquiring what He was not but by manifesting to His disciples what He in fact was; He opened their eyes and gave these blind men sight.”
And the most significant moment during the Transfiguration had not yet taken place. The voice of the Eternal Father spoke from a cloud telling them to listen to His Son. Then there is Jesus standing there alone; just as He had been before. Perhaps it is no wonder that the passage ends with the Apostles not uttering a word. Indeed, they do not let anyone else know what had taken place. After all, if they could not really comprehend what had happened, how could they explain it or answer questions about it? The answers, as always, could only come from Christ. And they would be disclosed in His broken body on the cross and, ultimately, in His resurrected body that first appeared to the Apostles in a locked room. That His glorious body was also a promise of their own they probably never imagined at that time. But we can. We know Christ invites us all to receive this gift of glory.
