Newsletter 6th August 2023 The Transfiguration of the Lord (A)

A thought on the Feast of the Transfiguration

There are very few incidents in the life of Jesus that have a feast of their own. We have the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the feast of his Baptism; we remember his crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. The transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain in the presence of three of his disciples has its own feast too, which we celebrate today. It suggests the importance of this incident in the life of Jesus and in our own understanding of Jesus. Just before Jesus’          transfiguration, he had spoken to his disciples for the first time about his forthcoming passion and death. The disciples, and Peter in particular, struggled to accept and understand what Jesus had to say.

Perhaps, through this experience of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, Jesus wanted to give his disciples a glimpse of what lay beyond the passion and death that awaited him in Jerusalem. In the words of the voice from heaven, Jesus was God’s beloved Son. He remained God’s beloved Son as he hung from the cross. The loving hands of God would reverse what human hands had done to Jesus. God would bring Jesus, his beloved Son, through the suffering and death that had been inflicted on him, into a new and glorious life, of which the disciples on the mountain were now given a glimpse. The disciples were transfixed by what they saw on that occasion; Peter, in particular, wanted to prolong this vision of the glorified Jesus, this vision of heaven. I suppose if any of us had such a vision of heaven, we wouldn’t want to let it go either.