Ashes to Glory

Details: 18 March 2011

Connections

There are four accounts in the New Testament about the miraculous and mysterious event which we call the transfiguration of Jesus on a high mountain (Matthew 17: 1-8; Mark 9:1-7; Luke 9:28-36; 2 Peter 1:16-18). This transfiguration of the Lord is recalled each year in the Gospel proclamation on the Second Sunday of Lent in the Latin Rite liturgy ( and now as well in the fourth luminous mystery of the rosary). It is clear that the account of this event is connected with many various elements found throughout divine revelation and in the sacred liturgy. For instance, the transfiguration is linked with Saint Peter and his profession of faith in Christ’s divine sonship, with the Jewish festival of Tabernacles, with the tent of Moses and the cloud of God described in the Book of Exodus, with the Hebrew celebration of atonement on the great feast of Yom ha-Kippurim, with the story of Moses ascending a mountain with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, with the theophany at our Savior’s Baptism in the Jordan River, with Peter, James, and John accompanying Jesus into the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, with Christ’s promise that some bystanders would not see death until they saw God’s kingdom in all its glory, and with His discussion about the law and the prophets which He held after His resurrection with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

However, the biggest and most important connection of the transfiguration has to do with the redemptive suffering and death of Jesus. This makes hearing about it annually during Lent so very appropriate. Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, writes, "The appearance of His glory is connected with the passion motif. Jesus’ divinity belongs with the cross. Only when we put the two together do we recognize Jesus correctly. John expressed this intrinsic interconnectedness of the cross and glory when he said that the cross is Jesus’ exaltation, and that His exaltation is accomplished in no other way than in the cross." The Gospel according to Saint John echoes the transfiguration event in several places where the Evangelist recounts how God the Father interacts with His divine Son (John 12:28-30 & 17:1-4).

Catechism

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its section about the transfiguration, quotes a beautiful prayer customarily addressed to Jesus in the Byzantine liturgy: "You were transfigured on the mountain, and Your disciples, as much as they were capable of it, beheld Your glory, O Christ, our God, so that when they should see You crucified, they would understand that Your passion was voluntary, and then they could proclaim to the world that You truly are the Splendor of the Father." The Catechism explains, "For a moment Jesus discloses His divine glory, confirming Peter’s confession. He also reveals that He will have to go by the way of the cross at Jerusalem in order to enter into His glory (Luke 24:26). Moses and Elijah had seen God’s glory on a mountain. The law and the prophets had announced the Messiah’s sufferings. Christ’s passion is the will of the Father. The Son acts as God’s Servant (Isaiah42:1)." Saint Thomas Aquinas notes, "The whole Trinity appeared: the Father in the voice, the Son in the Man, and the Holy Spirit in the shining cloud."

Pope Benedict XVI remarks about how "Moses and Elijah appear (during the transfiguration) and talk with Jesus. What the risen Lord will later explain to the disciples on the road to Emmaus is seen here in visible form. The law and the prophets speak with Jesus and they speak of Jesus. ‘They appeared in glory and spoke of His departure (His exodus) which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Luke 9:31). Their topic of conversation is the cross, best understood in an inclusive sense as Jesus’ exodus, which had to take place in Jerusalem. Jesus’ cross is an exodus. a departure from this life, a passage through the Red Sea of the passion, and a transition into glory, a glory, however, that forever bears the mark of Jesus’ wounds. This is a clear statement that the law and prophets are fundamentally about the hope of Israel, the exodus that brings definitive liberation. But, the content of this hope is the suffering Son of Man and Servant of God, Who, by His suffering, opens the door into freedom and renewal." The correct understanding of the transfiguration event will help us to see that it displays "the irruption and inauguration of the messianic age", with the witnesses of the Old Covenant speaking with Jesus about His passion as the way to His glory."

Cloud and Tent

In the Prologue of his Gospel, Saint John says in well-known words, "The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). However, the last phrase says literally in Greek that "He pitched His tent among us." To a Bible reading Hebrew, the phrase recalls the "Tent of the Meeting" in the desert wanderings of the Jews. It was over that tent that "the holy cloud (the "shekinah" in Hebrew) often hovered as a sign of God’s presence." That cloud with God’s voice within it hovered over the disciples and over Jesus at the transfiguration (Mark 9:7). This indicates, the Holy Father notes, that now "Jesus is the holy tent above which the cloud of God’s presence stands and spreads out to overshadow the others as well. The scene repeats that of Jesus’ Baptism..."

At both Christ’s Baptism and at His transfiguration God the Father announces that Jesus is His Beloved Son. However, in the baptismal event the Father says that He (the Father) is "well-pleased" with Jesus, while at the transfiguration the Father concludes His words with a command: "Listen to Him!" The Pope, quoting a German author, says God is telling the disciples that Jesus Himself has become the Word of divine revelation. Jesus Himself is now the Torah of the New Covenant. "This one command brings the theophany to its conclusion and sums up its deepest meaning. The disciples must accompany Jesus back down the mountain and learn ever anew to listen to Him."

Augustine and Leo

Noting how Saint Peter at the transfiguration, in a kind of trance, proposes building huts or tents on the mountain top for Jesus, Moses, Elijah, and the three disciples, Saint Augustine of Hippo says that Peter did not yet realize that "it is only through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts of the Apostles 14:22). The great Bishop and Doctor of the Church said, "Peter did not yet understand this when he wanted to remain with Christ on the mountain. It has been reserved for you, Peter, but after death. For now, Jesus says, Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth (as I Myself now do). Life goes to be killed. Bread goes down to suffer hunger. The Way goes down to be exhausted on His journey. The Fountain goes down to suffer thirst, and you refuse to suffer?"

Pope Saint Leo the Great said the whole Church, learning what those three disciples saw and heard in the transfiguration, is inspired "never to be ashamed of the cross of Christ or fear to suffer for Him. Provided we persevere in faith and love, the transfiguration teaches us that through toil we come to rest and through death we cross over to life. And so, Beloved, that we may do what He told us to do and bear our trials in patience, we should have ever in our ears the voice of the Father telling us: Listen to Him."