The Transfiguration of the Lord

 

Mateo, Marcos and Lucas, narrate us, with the difference of some slight nuances, the event of the Transfiguration. Jesus had told his disciples of his impending passion and death. And so that they would not waver in their faith, he invited three of them, Peter, James and John, to climb Mount Tabor with him, precisely the three who would see his agony in Gethsemane.

On Tabor the Lord showed them his glory and splendor, while Moses and Elijah appeared talking with Jesus. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes turned a dazzling white, as no fuller in the world is capable of whitening them, as the evangelist Saint Mark plastically specifies.

Then Peter intervened and said to Jesus: Lord, how good we are here. If you want, let's make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. But that was only a brief episode. A cloud was formed that covered them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I have placed all my pleasures. listen to him

This voice would comfort them at the time of trial. They could never forget her. Above all, Peter, who will write later: This voice brought from heaven, we heard it, being with Him on the sacred mountain.

The voice of the Father is urgent. If Jesus is the Beloved in whom all his pleasures are placed, it means that the Father will only be pleased with us as long as we resemble Jesus, as long as we imitate him, as long as we reflect his image, and reproduce the gestures and words of Jesus. the.

The Father will only be pleased with us if we listen to Jesus, who is his Word, because, as the Letter to the Hebrews says, on multiple occasions and in many ways God spoke to our fathers in the times of the prophets, but now, in this final stage, he has spoken to us through the Son, whom he has named heir of everything, and is the reflection of his glory.

St. John of the Cross comments sharply on these words: As the Father gave us his Son -which is one of his Words, who has no other- he spoke everything to us together and at once in this one Word and he has no more to say. That God has already remained mute, because what He spoke before in parts to the prophets, He has already spoken in Him all, giving us the whole that is His Son. It would therefore be inconsiderate to ask God for new revelations, since everything has already been revealed to us in his Son: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have placed all my pleasures. listen to him

Some Holy Fathers provide a curious interpretation of the Transfiguration. Jesus, they say, was always transfigured, his divinity always radiated through the envelope of human nature, his face was always resplendent - "that luminous halo that the most holy souls give off" - but the disciples, entangled in problems of pre-eminence immersed in small details, mixed among crowds, entertained in little things, they could not glimpse the brightness of the face of Jesus.

It was enough for them to leave the thickness of the valley, to climb the mountain, to put aside their tiny concerns, to purify their eyes, to look more closely, without hindrance, at the face of Jesus, for them to discover the brilliance of his gaze, the always radiant face of Jesus.

An author says that if man frequently looked at the sky, he would end up growing wings. And another more prosaic affirms that whoever only looks at the ground will grow four legs. But God gave us eyes to look up.

Commenting on this passage of the transfiguration of the Holy Scriptures, Msgr. Straubinger tells us about the last words of this Gospel: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased, listen to Him." If any people, cultured or savage, were to say that the voice of a god had been heard in space, or that a piece of parchment had been discovered with words sent from another planet… imagine the shock and the degree of curiosity that this would produce, both in one and in the collectivity. But God the Father spoke to tell us to tell us that a man was his Son, and then he spoke to us through that son and his envoy saying that his words were our life. Where then are his words? And how they all devour them! They are in a book that costs little and that hardly anyone reads, How far is this from the time announced by Christ for his second coming, WHEN THERE SHALL BE NO FAITH ON EARTH? These last words are very true because faith has greatly diminished in current times and we find ourselves in a world where faith no longer has a place, a world that is increasingly unbelieving, selfish, more atheist.