Monday, August 5, 2013

Transfiguration of the Lord, Tuesday, 06-08-13

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 / 2 Peter 1:16-19 / Luke 9:28-36

It is the teaching of the Church that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.

Jesus was born of a woman and became a man like us. He also died a painful death by being crucified on the cross.

But three days later He rose from the dead and just as the crucifixion attested to His humanity, the Resurrection attested to His divinity.

But between the Incarnation and the Resurrection, there is this peculiar event which we are celebrating today called the Transfiguration.

At the mountain top, the the disciples saw the glory of Jesus and the voice from heaven proclaimed Him as the Beloved Son of God.

Peter, James and John were witnesses to this and in the 2nd reading, Peter wrote a testimony about it. On that mountain, the three disciples saw the glory of the Transfiguration of Jesus and they were ecstatic about it.

After experiencing such a divine manifestation, we would expect the three disciples to have an unshakeable faith in Jesus.

But further on ahead, as the events in the life of Jesus began to unfold, their faith was shaken to the extent that even Peter committed that infamous triple denial of Jesus.

And even when their faith is restored after the Resurrection, Peter remembered what happened at the Transfiguration and thereafter, and hence he wrote this in the 2nd reading: you will be right to depend on prophecy and take it as a lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds.

So as we gather to celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration, we acknowledge and give thanks to God for the experiences of His presence and glory.

Yet we also pray that when the darkness envelope us and shakes our faith, may our memories of the experiences of God's love be that little light that will shine through the darkness and bring about the light of God's salvation.