ON THE FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION

Mt 17:1-9

Today is the feast of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ on the Mountain. The word transfiguration means, “change of form or appearance.” This feast commemorates one of the pinnacles of Jesus' earthly life, when he revealed his divinity to three of his closest disciples by means of a miraculous and supernatural light. It is the feast of the indwelling of God within Christ. The Transfiguration is the revelation of the Person of Jesus as God. This event shows that it is precisely in Jesus that God reveals himself to us.

What is the significance of this mysterious appearance? To respond to this question we need to understand the context of the passage we read. If we check the Bible, 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: If you want to be my disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Then he said: the son of man is going to suffer greatly and be killed. With these words, the disciples were discouraged and started to lose faith.

I think the main raison of the transfiguration in the eyes of his three followers was to prepare the apostles for the sad event of his death on the cross. So this vision of the transfiguration is strictly linked to the mystery of the Passover, it looks like an apparition of the Risen Jesus in all his glory. In other words, transfiguration prepares the disciples for His upcoming suffering not as the way to the end of hope and life, but as the way to the glory and luminous event of the Resurrection. Transfiguration anticipates the Exaltation of the Cross.

As Jesus announced that, in Christian life there is the cross, he also tells us through the transfiguration that there is the beauty of new life if we accept the change; if we accept to be transfigured with him. This feast is an important opportunity for us believers to look to Christ as “the light of the world,” and to experience the kind of conversion. Transfiguration urgently reminds us that we need to emerge from the darkness of evil, and to experience the joy of the children of light. This is not simply an event that took place two-thousand-years ago. It is rather a reality of the present time, it is a way of life available to those who seek and accept Christ as their God. Through Baptism, we are members of this glorified body of Christ. How far are we on the path of our own transfiguration? How are we living our baptismal commitments? How do we manifest God’s love and God’s glory to our brothers and sisters?