António dos Santos
Today, August 6th, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which has been celebrated in the East since the 5th century. The mysterious episode of Jesus’ Transfiguration takes place on a high mountain, Tabor, before three witnesses chosen by Him: Peter, James and John. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light; Moses and Elijah appeared. Here, too, an encounter between the Old and New Covenants takes place. Christ reveals His divinity to be engraved in the hearts of His disciples and in all who seek to be touched by Him. When we look at the Lord humiliated and suffering on the wood of the cross on the mountain Golgotha, we must remember His glory and divinity revealed on Mount Tabor.
The Transfiguration is a theophany, a manifestation of both the divine life of Christ and the Trinity. In this episode in Jesus’ life, we recall His baptism in the Jordan, in which the Father’s voice also declares Jesus as His beloved Son; here Jesus shines with light, a reflection of His divinity. The cloud and the light are two inseparable symbols in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Since the manifestations of God in the Old Testament, the Cloud – dark or luminous – reveals the living and saving God, hiding the transcendence of His Glory.
The rich Byzantine liturgy thus prays on the feast of the Transfiguration: “You were transfigured on the mount, O Christ our God, showing Your glory to Your disciples as much as they could; that when they saw You crucified they might know that You suffered willingly, and proclaim to the world that You are truly the brightness of the Father.”
The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming. When the time comes, He “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). But it also reminds us that with Jesus “we must go through many tribulations to enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Therefore, like Christ, the Christian must not fear suffering.
In 2017, during the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Pope Francis left an invitation to every Christian – “The ever more vibrant rediscovery of Jesus is not the aim in itself, but spurs us to ‘come down the mountain,’ energized by the power of the divine Spirit, so as to decide on new paths of conversion and to constantly witness to charity, as the law of daily life.” (Photo: ceiling of the church on the Mount of Transfiguration in Galilee)
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