Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Wait! Didn’t we celebrate that at Lent? Yes, we did, on the Second Sunday of Lent. However, it has its own feast day as well, to signify, since the beginning of the Church, the vast importance of this event.
It is not a moment not only of pure wonder that the Father spoke from the clouds of his Son, our Lord; nor that Moses and Elijiah appeared with Jesus on the mountain — as full of glory as these moments are. It is a moment of our transfiguration as well, of transforming ourselves into brothers and sisters of Christ, The Son of Man, a term He uses to foretell His death, His resurrection and return to judge all.
From Deacon Keith Fournier at Catholic.org:
In accordance with a very ancient custom, the Catholic Church has included this account of the Transfiguration in the Liturgy of the Second Sunday of Lent. Today, we hear it proclaimed as well on its Proper Feast Day, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a day of great meaning in the fullness of the Mystery of the Ancient faith. Whether during Lent or on today’s Feast, it is meant to focus all of her faithful on the “end”, the goal or final purpose of the Christian life and vocation. We will all be transfigured, as the Lord Himself was transfigured, when our redemption is complete in the Resurrection of the Body. Then, we will live in the new heaven and new earth. This reality is meant to inform and transform the way we live our lives now.
From the earliest centuries, the entire Christian Church, both East and West, emphasized the centrality of the Transfiguration of the Lord in understanding the fullness of redemption. Our experience of our life in the Lord and in His Church, is only the beginning of what is to come in the kingdom, the life eternal, but it is already a participation in that new reality. The Church, in the words of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, is a “seed of the kingdom” to come. Our life within the Church is a real participation in the eternal, beginning in the now. The Transfiguration presents us with an opportunity to reflect on the implications of what that can mean.
This wonderful event on the Mountain was meant to strengthen the faith of these three disciples. They were about to witness the events that would lead their Messiah, their Lord and Master, along what would appear to be an ignominious path, up Golgotha’s lonely hill, to be crucified, a fate reserved for common criminals. Their own faith would be shaken, tested and tried. He loved all who were His own in this world. He wanted encourage them — and to encourage us — to persevere.
