This feast of the glorification of Jesus before his “exodus” (as Luke’s Gospel calls it) is one which the Church fixes annually on a specific date, August 6^th. Two other important events coincidentally occurred on this date: the exploding of the first of two Atomic bombs in Japan, hastening an end to World War II in the Pacific theater (1945), and the death of Pope Paul VI (1978), the pope who bravely continued and implemented the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. From the Catholic historical perspective, all three of these occasions are causes for serious reflection and are worth remembering in prayer. We will reflect on the Transfiguration here. The other two I commend to your thoughtful consideration.

The Transfiguration of Jesus is remembered in the Synoptic Gospels as an event parallel to his Baptism, but each Transfiguration memory is slightly different from those in the other two Gospel accounts. Of course Baptism for Jesus was a very different event than that which we experience. Ours was for initiation into the Church and for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus’ Baptism was the occasion of being pointed out by the (Divine) voice from the sky and so that the Holy Spirit could be witnessed to visibly descend upon him. While there were certainly others around also being baptized by John, no specific witnesses were named except for the Baptizer himself who would soon thereafter exit the Gospel narrative. The Transfiguration was a mystical experience (Luke calls it “prayer”. Peter, James and John were overcome with sleep hinting that it was a night-time experience and thus a different memory from Matthew’s and Mark’s). Jesus’ true identity was hinted at by the miraculous rendering of being “transfigured” – i.e., his face becoming radiant in some way and his clothing showing a supernaturally brilliant whiteness – and he was set in honor between Moses and Elijah “in glory” (i.e., in heavenly surroundings) a mark of his superior prophetic status to the great Old Testament prophets. But Jesus’ brilliance also predicted his future glorification, which in the Gospels would be defined by his Paschal Mystery, i.e., the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Arrest-Trial-Passion-Crucifixion, the Burial, the Resurrection, his Ascension and Pentecost. Each event can be imagined as a different facet or dramatic scene of the one whole profound mystery of Salvation. The Divine Voice at both Baptism and at Transfiguration was the literary way of demonstrating the Divine Seal of Approval for what Jesus did and taught, and was yet to do and teach. The witnesses to the Transfiguration – Peter, James and John – were effectively silent witnesses who would tell no one about the event until later in the narrative, even though they had shared a glimpse of heavenly glory. Paul would later claim to be caught up in ecstasy and to share a parallel, but not quite so fully-described, glimpse (see Galatians 1 & Acts 9).

The first reading from Daniel is one of the more famous of the Old Testament apocalyptic texts. Apocalyptic (from Apocalysis a Greek word for “revelation”) is an ancient literary genre in which the created universe is shown (in terms of an ancient cosmology) to be fragile and under the direct control of God, who reveals heavenly truths through an other-worldly being to a human recipient (Daniel in this case) for the purpose of edifying and encouraging human believers in this world during times of tribulation (usually persecution and immanent danger of violent death). In this vision the Ancient One is an image of God while the “one like a son of man” in Jewish understanding was the personification of all the Jewish People who hoped to someday receive God’s power and glory. Christians later reinterpreted “the one like a son of man” to be Jesus as Christ who would receive dominion over all the universe from God the Father. This apocalyptic imagery fits with the Transfiguration imagery of brilliance and glory. The book of Daniel is really a series of mythic stories about the Jewish People being persecuted. It was composed during or after the Maccabean Revolts of the early 2^nd Century BC, but as a work of inspired fiction, it was set to have occurred during the Babylonian Captivity some centuries before. The Maccabean Era was one of tremendous and violent persecution, so the consolation and encouragement this book afforded was great. This was also the era in which Judaism in general was becoming enthusiastic in belief in an Afterlife with God and, soon, even about the idea of resurrection. The hope for such a transcendent life must have made the terrible tortures of the Maccabean War of the 160s BC endurable.

The reading from 2^nd Peter refers to the Heavenly Voice at the Transfiguration Event. The author, which might have been Peter or might have been someone else who wrote with his authority, tried to focus his audience on the hope of future salvation through what he called the “prophetic message.” Prophecy is not merely a prediction about the future. Rather it is more so the challenge to engage life with critical thinking, profound compassion, and thorough confidence in God’s saving Grace. Genuine prophecy always has more to do with discerning God’s Word and Will and living faithfully than with any sort of foresight.

As the Transfiguration event changed Jesus’ appearance (that’s what “transfigure” means: to change the appearance or shape of) in the sight of the three disciples, so too ought God’s Grace and Spirit change us. Our lives, while merely ordinary and human in appearances, are graced with nothing less that God’s Spirit as our motivation, as a reason to exist and hope for a future in God’s Presence. Ours is not an apocalyptic church. We really don’t expect Christ to come some day and bring the world to an end in technicolor and surround-sound. Rather, we expect to live out our lives as fully as we are able. The profound change in our lives – meant to parallel the Transfiguration beheld by Peter, James and John – is to be attitudinal (in our hearts and minds) and in how we practically live our faith, love and hope on a daily basis. When others who know us see us in our ordinary setting, they might well (and ought to) catch a glimpse of how we have Christ present in us. It might be momentary. It might be imperfect. It might be long-lasting. But, it ought to be real, genuine and edifying to them! This is how the Holy Spirit of God is bestowed upon us to the Glory of God!