Transfiguration
Ratzinger’s Spiritual Christology [“Behold the Pierced One”]:
Thesis 1: The Person of Jesus Christ is prayer as action of
self-transcendence. Luke is the source: Luke. 6, 12: “Now it came to
pass in those days, that he went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all
night in prayer to God. And when day broke, he summoned his disciples; and from
these he chose twelve (whom he also named apostles).” The point: “The
Church is born in that prayer in which Jesus gives himself back into the Father’s
hands and the Father commits everything to the Son.” Luke 9, 18: “And it
came to pass as he was praying in private, that his disciples also were with
him, and he asked them, saying, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am’ And they answered
and said, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elias; and others, that one of the
ancient prophets has risen again.’ And he said to them, ‘But who do you say
that I am?’… Simon…, ‘The Christ of God.’ Luke 9, 28: “Now it came to pass
about eight days after these words that he took Peter, James and John and went
up the mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the appearance of his countenance
was changed, and his raiment became a radiant white.”
Ratzinger
comment: “Thus he [Luke] makes it plain that the Transfiguration only
renders visible what is actually taking place in Jesus’ rpayer: he is sharing
in God’s radiance and hence in the manner in which the true meaning of the Old
Testament – and of all history – is being made visible, i.e., revelation. Jesus’
proclamation proceeds from this participiation in God’s radiance, God’s glory,
which also involves a seeing with the eyes of God, and therefore the unfolding
of what was hidden. So Luke also shows the unity of revelation and prayer in
the person of Jesus: both are rooted in the mystery of Sonship.” He concludes: “The
entire person of Jesus is contained in his prayer.”
Blogger: This means that the Person
of the Son is pure relation, total self-gift to the Father. The Aristotelian substance as thing-in itself, has no part in this. A new mode of being-as-relation
unfolds and introduces us into a new perception of what is reality.
Bishop-elect
Robert Barron suggests that the architecture of Thomistic metaphysics proceeds
from the Christology of Chalcedon (and, I add: Constantinople III) where the esse
of creatures is nothing in itself but receptivity and relation to the Creating Ipsum Esse[1] as the human nature of Christ [created] is ontologically distinct fromthe divine nature [uncreated] but personally one.
[1]
This obviates the impossible conundrum concerning esse being received by “something” (essence) that is not yet
which, as a new notion of potency, limits esse
to be this esse.
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