BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 15)
Second Sunday of Lent, Year C – March 7, 2004
“The Transfiguration”
BIBLE READINGS
Mary Ann O’Roark’s article in the March 2004 issue of the GUIDEPOSTS magazine, which contains true stories of hope and inspiration, is about a hardworking mom, Oral Lee Brown, who helped poor children obtain an education and fulfill their potential. Belonging to a poor family of cotton pickers in Mississippi, she moved to California where she raised her three daughters. When they were grown, Oral Lee turned her energies to running a real-estate agency and a restaurant in Oakland. In 1987 she met a classroom of 23 first graders in Brookfield Elementary and realized that kids who are in the midst of poverty and crime-blighted neighborhoods hunger most of all for inspiration. She told the first graders in Brookfield Elementary: “If you stay in school and graduate, I’ll send you to college. That’s a promise.” Oral Lee made herself a part of the students’ lives, inspiring them with her own climb out of poverty. The kids did not disappoint their “real life angel”. Twenty of those 23 first graders graduated from high school. Oral Lee’s trust fund sent them to college. Last May Oral Lee watched the first of her class graduate from college. Latosha Hunter got her diploma from Alcorn State University in Mississippi, which she chose in part because it’s near where her mentor grew up. “If she can make it, I can make it,” Latosha says. Indeed, Oral Lee has given these privileged kids a glimpse of their future glory and inspired them to attain their wonderful destiny.
Today’s Gospel reading on the transfiguration (Lk 9:28b-36) gives us a glimpse of the glory of Jesus as the Son of God and Servant of Yahweh. It is also a pledge of our own paschal destiny and glory. The transfiguration of Jesus is meant to strengthen the faith of the Christian disciples journeying through death to the Easter glory. With the transfiguration event, we are given a forceful direction towards the completion of the Father’s saving plan. Confirmed in faith by the vision of Christ’s glory, we can assert with courage, “If Christ can make it, we can make it.”
This Sunday’s Gospel passage begins with the following words: “Jesus took Peter, John and James and went up to the mountain to pray” (Lk 9:28b). The editors of the Vatican II Lectionary omitted the first part of verse 28: “Now about eight days after this had been said …”. The omission is unfortunate for that phrase connects Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain with his first prophecy of the passion (v. 22) and his teaching on the radical demands of discipleship (v.23-26). Indeed, the transfiguration event finds greater meaning against the backdrop of the passion prophecy and the imperative to take up one’s cross daily and follow Christ as his disciples. According to the biblical scholar, Carroll Stuhlmueller: “The transfiguration confirms Jesus’ previous message that suffering is the way to glory.” Jerome Kodell explains that the transfiguration is a dazzling contrast to the message of suffering and humiliation. He asserts that the two extremes need to be held together, as always in the gospel tradition, in order to accept Jesus as he is – Son of Man and Son of God.
Luke narrated that while Jesus was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white (Lk 9:29). In these powerful images of radiant transformation, Luke wishes to underline the transcendent character of Jesus as the one to be exalted in glory by God. The Benedictine writer, Amiliana Lohr reflects on the meaning of the Lord’s transfiguration: “The Father gave Christ the resurrection and its brilliant light; he raised the servant who was faithful to him, his Son, to the height of his own glory. Throughout his journey, until the moment of his passion, the Lord was aware of the glory which awaited him at the end of it … This unshakable certainty requires no exterior sign of assurance from the Father, for its own sake, but to strengthen the faith for his apostles for the time of the passion; the glory of the resurrection is anticipated for them to see for a moment on the mountain.” The transfiguration of the Lord Jesus is thus to confirm the faith of his disciples and strengthen them for the paschal mystery that lies ahead.
Luke continued his account of the Lord’s transfiguration: “And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem” (Lk 9:30-31). In embarking upon the paschal journey through suffering and death in Jerusalem, Jesus was in consonance with the spirit of the law and the prophets and the Father’s saving will. As the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, Jesus was radically geared towards the divine saving plan through his messianic ministry and paschal sacrifice on the cross. St. Cyril of Alexandria comments on the transfiguration account: “The presence of Moses and Elijah, and their speaking together, was meant to show unmistakably that the law and the prophets were the attendants of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was their master, whom they had themselves pointed out in advance in prophetic words that proved their perfect harmony with one another.”
Peter and his companions, John and James, were heavy with sleep, but they kept awake and saw Jesus’ glory and the two men standing with him (Lk 9:32). Desiring to contemplate the beauty of the messianic vision, Peter suggested to build three tents on the mountain of revelation: one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah (Lk 9:33). Evidently, the privileged disciple who had earlier confessed his faith in Jesus as “the Christ of God” (Lk 9:20) did not understand the vision of the two Old Testament figures, Moses and Elijah, conversing with the glorified Jesus. Peter erroneously interpreted the event as God’s consummation of history. St. Cyril of Alexandria explains: “But it was not yet time for the end of the world … Only the initial stage of the divine plan had as yet been accomplished. Until its completion was it likely that Christ, who came on earth for love of the world, would give up his wish to die for it? For his submitting to death was the world’s salvation, and his resurrection was death’s destruction.”
The transfiguration event reached its climax when a cloud came and covered them with its shadow, and a voice of heaven speaking, reminiscent of those spoken at Jesus’ baptismal consecration: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him” (Lk 9:35; cf. Lk 3:22). According to Carroll Stuhlmueller: “This is the all-important phrase in this scene; Moses and Elijah have disappeared and heaven declares that henceforth men must listen to him, especially in what he will say of his suffering and death, the way to glory and salvation.”
The mystery of the Lord’s transfiguration lives on in the Church. Amiliana Lohr asserts: “Today this transfiguration of the Lord is put particularly to the fore in the liturgical event. We see the glorification of Christ living in his Church … She makes her appearance today in the real but mystical presence of the liturgical celebration, with, or rather, in the glory of the Christ who was killed, but rose again … Only when we have borne the conformation to Christ throughout the whole of our earthly lives, and striven always more consciously to realize it; only when we have borne our share of the pain of Christ, to the last end in our body’s death, will the full splendor of the risen and glorified Christ break out in us.”
How do we treasure the transfiguration event of Christ and its pledge of future glory? Do we allow ourselves to be strengthened by Christ for our paschal journey to Easter glory?
How do we heed the Father’s voice from the cloud, saying to us: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him” (Lk 9:35).
Do we believe that the mystery of the Lord’s transfiguration lives on in the Church, especially through the sacraments and through a life totally conformed to Christ who suffered, died and was glorified?
(From the Collect of the Mass, 2nd Sunday of Lent, Roman Sacramentary)
Leader: God our Father,
help us to hear your Son.
Enlighten us with your word
that we may find the way to your glory.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
Assembly: Amen.
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.” (Lk 9: 29)
ACTION PLAN: Today pray the Rosary and contemplate the “Mysteries of Light”, focusing special attention on the fourth decade: The Lord’s Transfiguration.
ACTION PLAN: As a way of making the mystery of the Lord’s transfiguration live on in the Church, you may wish to respond to the following mission appeal of Bishop Jose Mukala, Bishop of Kohima, in Nagaland, in northeast India, bordering Myanmar. Nagaland has 16 principal tribes which have numerous and dialectical variations with one another. Bishop Mukala writes from mountainous Kohima: “There are many villages wanting to come over to the Catholic Church and our fathers and sisters are working very hard. In fact I want to open a number of parishes but the means are lacking.” Please send your response to the ff.:
Bishop’s House
Post Box No. 149
Kohima, Nagaland
India 797 001
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US