Why the Transfiguration? To show that we must go through a transformation to be transfigured ourselves and so
see/recognize Him here and now. Why this? Like is known by like. Luke 9, 18 reports
Christ praying alone to the Father, and “his disciples also were with Him.” He
asks them “who do men say that I am?” (Lk. 19, 19). They answer, “John the Baptist,” “Elias,” “one
of the ancient prophets has risen again.” He asks: “But who do you say that I
am?” (Lk. 19, 20). Simon answers: “The Christ of God” (Lk. 21).
Simon
has to go through the transformation of praying as Jesus prayed such that the
Lord would change his name from Simon to Peter – Rock – which is Christ’s name:
“Cornerstone” (Acts 4, 11). But
something deeper is going on here. The transfiguration of Christ is the
revelation – the removal of the veil: re-vel-ation – that Christ is the
meaning of all things. That is to say, all
things. A divine Person is in the flesh, but this flesh is connection with
the entire physical universe. It comes from the Virgin’s DNA, is fed by the material world through her, and lives an
ordinary hidden life of obedience and work. But that Life is the uncreated Life
of a divine Person Who is nothing but Gift to the Father. We are redeemed by it
and sacramentally inserted into it (initiated, restored when broken and fed).
Therefore,
Christ was never simply “there” in time and space. Being “there” 2000 years ago,
He became the meaning of time and space. “He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of every creature. For in him were created all things in the heavens
and on the earth, things visible and things invisible… All things have been
created through and unto him, and he is before all creatures, and in him all
things hold together.”
Robert Barron writes: “He is the
prototype of all finite existence, even of those great powers that transcend
the world and govern human affairs. If we are tempted to understand his
influence as only a thing of the past, we are corrected: ‘in him all things
hold together’ (v. 17). Jesus is not only the one in whom things were created
but also the one in whom they presently exist and through whom they inhere in
one another. And if we are inclined to view the future as a dimension of creation
untouched by Christ, we are set straight: ‘through him God was pleased to reconcile
to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through
the blood of his cross’ (v. 20). Individuals, societies, cultures, animals,
plants, planets and the stars – all will be drawn into an eschatological
harmony through him. Mind you, Jesus is not merely the symbol of an intelligibility,
coherence and reconciliation that can exist apart from him; rather, he is the active
and indispensable means by which these realities come to be. This Jesus, in
short, is the all-embracing, all-inclusive Lord of whatever is to be found in
the dimensions of time and space.”
Barron
then moves to John: “A text that parallels the first chapter of Colossians in
the intensity and range of its claims is, of course, the prologue to the Gospel
of John. If in Colossians that particular figure Jesus of Nazareth is
identified with the creative power of God, in the Johannine text the process is
reversed: now the transcendent Logos of God is appreciated as the one who
became concretely available in this Jesus: ‘The Word became flesh.’ But the
assertion of Christ’s absolute ontological priority remains the same: this
Jesus is the Word that was with God from the beginning and through whom all things
that exist came to be and continue in being.”
Barron now moves to the point I
would make for the Transfiguration. He writes: “Now what follows from these breathtaking
descriptions is a centrally important epistemic claim: that Jesus cannot be
measured by a criterion outside of himself or viewed from a perspective higher
than himself. He cannot be understood as one object among many or surveyed
blandly by a disinterested observer. If such perspectives were possible, then
he would not be the all-grounding “Word or the criterion than which no more
final can be thought. If we sought to know him in this way, we would not only
come to incorrect conclusions but also involve ourselves in a sort of
operational contradiction. To be consistent with these accounts, we must say
that Jesus determines not only what there is to be known (since he is the
organizing principle of finite being) but also how we are to know what is to be
known (since the mind itself is a creature, made and determined through him) .
“A Christ-illumined mind in search
of Christ-determined forms seems to be the epistemology implicit in Colossians
and the Johannine prologue. Further, as Bruce Marshall has argued, this primacy
implies that the narratives concerning Jesus must, for Christians, be an
epistemic trump, that is to say, an articulation of reality that must hold sway
over and against all rival articulations, be they scientific, psychological,
sociological, philosophical, or religious. To hold to Colossians and the
prologue to John is to have a clear negative criterion concerning all claims to
ultimate truth: whatever runs contrary to the basic claims entailed in the
narratives concerning Jesus must certainly be false.”[1]
Conclusion: to become a
contemplative of Christ by living ordinary secular life and work as self-gift
(prayer). One becomes “another Christ,” and therefore, enters into the mount of
the Transfiguration with Peter, James and John.
The Takeaway: The mystical
life in ordinary life. The giving of self in ordinary secular life is an
experience with the consciousness/mysticism of Christ. Escriva wrote: “By our complete
dedication, within our limitations and with the humiliation of our interior
failures, we return to God each day, as one returns to the main road after a
detour. I have often told you that I am always play the role of the prodigal
son. This is the moment for contrition, for love, for the fusion of the
creature, who is nothing, with his God and his love, who is everything.
“My children, I am not talking
about extraordinary things. These are , they must be, ordinary happenings in
our soul. You should lead your brothers along this path to the madness of love
that teaches us how to suffer and how to live, because God has given us the
gift of Wisdom. Then, what serenity, what peace is ours.!
“Asceticism? Mysticism? What’s the
difference? What do names matter? It is God’s gift. When you make an effort to
meditate, God will not deny you his gifts. The Holy Spirit will give them to
you. My children, have faith, and deeds of faith! For this is already
contemplation and union. And this is the life of my children in the midst of
the concerns of this world, even though they might not be aware of it. It is a
way of praying and living that does not separate us from earthly realities, but
that leads us to God in the midst of them. And by bringing earthly realities to
God, we creatures divinize the world.”[1]
[1]
Robert Barron, “The Priority of Christ, Toward a Postliberal Catholicism” Brazos Press (2007) 134-135.
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