Readings: Dan 7:9-10, 14-14; 2 Pt 1:16-19; Mt 17:1-9
Transfigured,
shone like the sun, Moses and Alijah appeared, listen to him and raised from
the dead are some of the key phrases in the gospel of this Sunday. This Sunday we
celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a feast that originates
from the 5th century and entered the universal calendar in the 15th
century. The Transfiguration is a central mystery of Christ’s life.. The
Transfiguration recalls the old covenant of Sinai and looks forward to the New
Covenant. It confirms Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, but also
reveals that the Messiah saves us through the exodus of the Cross. It looks
back to Jesus’ Baptism and looks forward to Jesus’ Resurrection. It is a
manifestation of the glory that the Son received eternally from the Father, but
also looks forward to the glory he will receive through his Passion, Death and
Resurrection, and is a foretaste of the glory of his second coming. It unveils
the hidden glory of the Son in his first coming and looks forward to the glory
we will receive from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.
The
Transfiguration is also a confrontation with evil. The event prefigures Jesus’
resurrection: “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as
light.” (Mt 17:2) Beautiful, but what we sometimes miss is that, in order to
arrive at that goal, Jesus had to first confront a great evil - everything that
would happen when he faced the authorities in Jerusalem. Moses and Elijah came
to Jesus to strengthen him. Moses had faced the horrible evil of slavery, the
reduction of the Israelites to objects who could be used at the pleasure of the
Pharaoh. Elijah confronted the Israelites themselves when they began to worship
the pagan gods of temple prostitution and child sacrifice. In 2015, I had the
opportunity to celebrate Mass with a group of my parishioners at the Church the
Transfiguration on Mount Tabor during our pilgrimage. Deacon Romeo who was on pilgrimage
with the group gave the homily and after told me how deeply humbled he was to
be asked to give the homily at this most sacred place where Our Lord was transfigured
before the apostles. In this homily, he said that this was the closest to being
in touch with what Peter, James and John experienced on that Mountain. As we
hear from the gospel, the apostles had not understood what it all meant until
Jesus rose from the tomb. The message of the Transfiguration may be summed up
in three points. 1) Just as Moses
brought three men up the mountain covered by the glory of God and the cloud
(Exodus 24:9-18), Jesus brings three Apostles with him to witness his glory. 2)
At the Transfiguration, the voice of the Father said: “This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”. We are therefore called upon to
listen to what Jesus is saying to us today and always. 3) The Transfiguration
gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he ‘will change our
lowly body to be like his glorious body.
Msgr. John S.
Mbinda
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