P. Daniel Antonio de Carvalho Ribeiro, SCJ
On the second Sunday of Lent, the Church presents to us the Gospel of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Throughout the gospel narratives, we follow the accounts of the numerous miracles that Jesus performed: healing people from the most diverse diseases, showing His power over impure spirits and the forces of nature. However, in the miracle of the Transfiguration it is different, here we witness the narration of the Manifestation of God in himself. He is the subject of the prodigious action, but also its object. This miracle has two vertices, one that marks the past, showing that in Him is fulfilled what was partially announced with the laws brought by Moses and the prophecy of Elijah. Another vertex that points to the future, where Jesus shines for three disciples, anticipating what He will be like in eternity and the Church will share in the glory of the Lord.
Despite minor differences in the text of the four gospels that tell us about this miracle, there is essentially agreement among the authors. Jesus invites Peter, James, and John to the top of the mountain to reveal himself to them. Our Lord shows that God appreciates revealing himself in solitude, silence and detachment from everything. The voice of God does not usually manifest itself in noise. It is only when we leave our things and remain silent with our interior that we can listen deeply to what He speaks to us. The first great lesson of the transfiguration is that God manifests Himself to those who want to hear Him and leave other things to have Him as a priority.
Transfiguration is the realization of the past. For the Jews, the Old Testament had as its pillars the law, represented in the person of Moses, and prophecy, represented by Elijah. Suddenly the two appear next to Jesus. Peter, enchanted, asks to make three tents: one for Jesus, another for Moses and one for Elijah. In the gospel it is said that Peter did not know what he was saying. We could ask ourselves why Peter’s innocent attitude is in a certain way rebuked in the Gospel, because in fact he did not think of himself, not including himself in that group of three. But if we look at it, in a theological sense, his mistake was to put Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah. Here is another lesson for our meditation: even though both are of enormous importance, the Gospel shows us the divinity of Jesus and consequently that no other human being can be placed on an equal footing with Him in our lives. Proof of this is that later Moses and Elijah disappear, and Jesus is left alone. Not only can no one be placed on an equal footing with Him, but in Him the fullness of the Old Testament law and prophecy is attained.
Transfiguration also has eschatological value, that is, it anticipates the future. Jesus’ face shines like the sun revealing what He will be like in His glory at the second coming and shows us how our nature will be transfigured if we are with Him. All this “lays the foundation of hope of the holy Church” (St. Leo the Great). And we as members of the Body of Christ, with Him as our head, should rejoice that we will share in His glory. As a third lesson, the overflowing hope and joy of the transfiguration should impel us to love God and our brothers and sisters, the necessary means to share in the glory of the Lord.
In last Sunday’s Gospel, with the temptations of Jesus in the desert, God shows the temptations that we will go through in our lives, but that our hope and the fundamental goal of our life must be focused on the transfiguration of the Lord, that is, on our definitive encounter with Him. Challenges will come, the temptations and trials of everyday life may even make us question where God is, but our faith in the definitive encounter with the Lord must strengthen us for the rest of the Lenten period and for our journey here on earth. Temptations show us the challenges that may appear on the path of Christian life, while the transfiguration reminds us that everything passes and one day we will be one with God.
Surely at times we can feel tired or even so happy in the presence of the Lord that we will not want to come down from the “mountain”. At this point, as the last lesson of this text, we must remember the words that St. Augustine narrates as being the possible words of Jesus to Peter: “Come down, Peter; you want to rest on the mountain: go down, preach the word of God, rebuke, exhort, encourage using all your patience and your ability to teach. Work, get very tired, also accept suffering and torture. […]. In the hymn to charity, it is stated that it ‘does not seek its own interest’ […]. This happiness, O Peter, Christ reserves for you after death. But now He Himself says to you, ‘Come down to be weary on earth, to serve on earth, to be despised, to be crucified on earth.'”
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