This weekend we are celebrating the glorious feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, which is described in three Gospels.
This is one of the 12 Great Feasts of the Church, in which after six days from his sojourn to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain where He was Transfigured before them, with His face radiant as the Sun and His garments as white as snow.
The significance of this Feastday is that Christ is God and possesses Divine Glory. It is the uncreated light in which God eternally dwells, a majestic radiance which transcends all earthly things, yet shows itself at significant moments when God chooses special persons to fulfill His purposes.
The second point to ponder is that the Transfiguration is an encouragement to the faith of the disciples. When Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Lord revealed to His disciples that He was to suffer and to die. The presence of Moses and Elijah in the Transfiguration light also showed to the disciples that the representatives of the Law and the Prophets bore testimony to the mission of Jesus Christ.
The third and most important aspect of the Transfiguration anticipates the Resurrection of Christ. The divine Light that radiated from the Transfigured Jesus pierced the darkness of hell as lightning and gave new life to the world.
Each of us inwardly bears a reflection of this glory, “as a spiritual treasure in clay pots”. All of us, therefore, reflect the glory of the Lord and, “that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into His likeness in an ever greater degree of glory”. (2 Cor. 3:18)
O Lord…You took Your disciples to a high mountain and were Transfigured before them, enlightening them with a radiance of glory …for You desired to show the splendor of the Resurrection, through Your transfiguration….Amen!
