- Each month the team working on this catechism presents you
with two texts, and we hope that with your help and cooperation
they will improve. Any suggestions you may have would be most
welcome, as would ideas on subject matter.
- We look forward to hearing from you.
The transfiguration
Three evangelists describe this strange event in the life
of Jesus, that was named the transfiguration, because the face
of Jesus enlightened and his clothes became dazzling white. This
is what appeared to be for the three disciples, Peter, James
and John who Jesus took with him on the mountain to pray. They
also saw Moses and Eli speaking with him and they heard a voice
confirming who is really Jesus beyond his appearance: "
This is my Son, listen to him" All happened in a cloud,
sometimes bright, sometimes dark. This event is more than a meteorological
event; it is the usual way that the Bible expresses the presence
of God who stays unseen yet we have the experience of him.
Certainly, our three friends had such a profound interior experience
that there were no words to describe it. The way they look at
Jesus has changed. They see him differently than the carpenter's
son. They were astonished and delighted by his familiarity with
Moses who liberated his people from the Egyptians and has given
them a law, and with Eli, the great prophet. Jesus is like a
new Moses and a new Eli; he brings inner and outer liberation.
Finding this discovery they would have liked to have stopped
time and proposed to Jesus to set three tents, one for him, one
for Moses and one for Eli.
It is worth noticing that the only witnesses of the event are
Peter, James and John who were also the witnesses to the agony
of Jesus just before he was disfigured by the blows, the thorns
and the spittle: from the transfiguration to the disfiguration.
The man they saw there and really discovered is perhaps the image
of every body. The one having a disfigured body by disease, age
or violence can still be transfigured. Something of the splendor
wanted by God for him still persists in his awkward appearance.
Who has never witness the brightness in the eyes of some one
rehabilitated in the dignity then the beauty of a human being
by an act of justice or a smile? We have all had the experience
of a person that we think we know well who can be more than we
imagine; as if we understand suddenly that this person does not
belong to us but to God and that God loves this person as his
child. This gives to each person another dimension, and fills
us with respect.
In spite of the strength of their experience on the mountain
and the voice they heard, the apostles now just see only Jesus,
in his usual appearance, and perhaps they asked themselves if
they have not dreamed. It is only after the resurrection of Jesus
that they understood all its meaning: Jesus disfigured by death
reveals the love of the Father in his resurrection. His body
does not fear any more death. He is the human being in his fullness,
as God wants it. It is the good news that concerns all of us
and we are called upon to make it real. Spectacular events do
not make a living; we have to go down the mountain to merge with
the every day life. It is those who care for the miseries and
needs of the others, who marvel in the greatness and the dignity
of the human being, who, today, reflect something of the light
of the resurrection.
