The
wise man said: “I was a revolutionary when I was young and all my prayer to God
was, ‘Lord, give me energy to change the world.’ “As I approached middle age
and realized that half of my life has gone without changing a single soul, I
changed my prayer to, ‘Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come in
contact with me. Just my family and friends and I shall be satisfied.’ “Now that
I am an old man and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I
have been. My one prayer now is: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change myself.’ If
I had prayed for this right from the start I could not have wasted my life.”
Our
gospel of today talks about the transfiguration of Jesus Christ on the Mountain.
The word transfiguration means, “change of form or appearance.” It means beyond
figuration or physical appearance. In other words, transfiguration reveals the
Divinity of Christ; it shows the indwelling of God within Christ. The
Transfiguration is a revelation of the Person of Jesus as God. This event shows
that it is precisely in Jesus that God reveals himself and reveals his face to
the Apostles. We heard that from the cloud came a voice that said: This is my
beloved son with whom I am well pleased; listen to him. Thus, those who wish to
know God must contemplate the face of Jesus. Jesus is the perfect revelation of
the Father’s holiness, love and mercy. That is the meaning of Transfiguration.
We
know that in the liturgical calendar, we celebrate the feast of the transfiguration
every 6th of August. But also, we read the gospel about the
transfiguration of the Lord every second Sunday of Lent. The important question
is why this gospel during lent? What is the significance of this mysterious
appearance during lent? To respond to this question we need to understand the
context of this passage. This account is found immediately after the first
announcement of the Passion and the mentioning of the conditions necessary for
following Christ. Jesus has said to his disciples: If you want to be my
disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. For anyone who wishes
to save his life will lose it. Then he said that the son of man is going to
suffer greatly and be killed. With these conditions and announcements the
disciples were discouraged and starts to lose faith. In my own reflection, the
main purpose why Jesus was transfigured in the eyes of his three followers was
to prepare the apostles for the sad event where he will be sacrificed and nailed
on the cross. So this vision of the transfiguration is strictly linked to the
mystery of the Passover, it seems like an apparition of the Risen Jesus in all
his glory. In other words, transfiguration prepared the disciples for His
upcoming suffering not as the way to the end of hope and life, but as a way to
the glory and luminous event of the Resurrection. Transfiguration
anticipates the Exaltation of the Cross. And so it fits in this period of lent.
Yes,
there is the cross but transfiguration tells us that there is also the beauty
of new life if we accept the change; if we accept to be transfigured with the
Lord. This reminds me of a story of a very beautiful woman who spend her life
enjoying herself in a very perverse way. When she was getting older she
underwent a kind of conversion and became Christian. On her sixtieth birthday
she asked the Lord for long life. The Lord said fine, I give you forty more
years. With that promise from the Lord, she return back to her old lifestyle.
First, she had a facelift, then a nose lift and all other stuff to make her
beautiful again. Next, she had the color of her hair changed. But as she was
going out of the beauty parlor, a taxi hit her and she died on the spot. When
she came face to face with God, she said: “Lord, you told me I still had forty
years more to live, how come I am dead already?” the Lord took a second look at
her and said: “Oh, is that you? Sorry, but I did not recognize you that is why
I hit you.”
This
story gives another question: How can we transfigure ourselves? First, in our
gospel, transfiguration happened on the mountain, where God lives. So the first
thing is that we have to let ourselves be transfigured in the presence of God. In
other words, let us change for the better. Where is the mountain of your faith?
Where do you find your God? Go there for your transfiguration. Second, in
our gospel, transfiguration happened when Jesus was praying. So the second
thing is that we need to pray for our transfiguration. It is not about physical
metamorphose; it is about the change of heart. Prayer is the time to fill the
gap which separates us from God. The gospel about the Transfiguration in the
period of Lent encourages us to continue our Lenten practices with hope that at
the end, there is glory. Transfiguration takes an important part in our lives
as Christians. We are called to read it not as a story far from us, but as our
destiny. Humanity is made for transfiguration; humanity is made for the glory. We
might be weighed down by our weaknesses and failures, by trials and sufferings,
and by the prospect of a certain death. But Jesus approaches us today and says:
“Get up, do not be afraid! Go and do not hesitate to proceed on this journey. Knowing
that every time we
gather for the Eucharist we experience a moment of transfiguration where our
divine Lord is transfigured before our eyes in the forms of bread and wine. May
the reassurance of God’s loving presence with us at communion take away all
fear and doubt from our hearts and strengthen us to get up and face with
courage the challenges and trials, and sufferings and death that we must pass
through before we can share in the divine glory.
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