This is my homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration celebrated this past Wednesday in the Extraordinary Form.
In reflecting upon the events of the feast we celebrate this evening, some biblical commentators have called this the temporary cessation of a miracle. For, as they argue, if Christ is God, should not His divine glory radiate through His sacred humanity at every point of His life on earth? Yet the Gospels do not relate to us the viewing of this glory except upon Mount Thabor before the most trusted of the Apostles. Why is it that Christ seems to hide Himself from the crowds and refrains from shining before man?
We must remember first that the heart of humanity remains dark from the consequences of the Fall. The Most High God, up to this moment in history, had been working with countless people in bringing about the beginning of these last days in the life of Christ. Beginning with Abraham, God had formed a people to be his firstborn upon the earth, the tribe from which the Savior would be born. By calling Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and to the freedom of the Promised Land, God is highlighting the moral order necessary to live as one called to this peculiar relationship with Himself. And by the voice of Elijah and the prophets, God calls these people to know Him completely, to love Him sincerely, and to serve Him without fail.
Yet darkness still reigns within the human heart, corrupted by the action of Adam and Eve. Abraham knew of the smiting of Sodom and Gomorrah by God for their heinous sins of lust. Moses was forced to intercede for the Israelites after they fashioned a golden calf for veneration, even as they beheld the hidden splendor of God dwelling on the top of Mount Sinai. And Elijah witnessed the persecution of Jezebel and Ahaz as they tried to drive the voice of God away from His people. Christ Himself in His earthly life saw the influence of Satan personally and through the progression of the Pharisees’ animosity against Him.
Indeed, it is the contrast of light and darkness which is most striking in this feast of the Transfiguration. From of old, the Church has professed God to be “light, and in Him there is no darkness.” There is nothing hidden or stained within God’s being. His perfection, His infinitude, His simplicity are all so brilliant that they radiate with purity and clarity. Indeed, every time we profess the Nicene Creed, as we shall do tonight, we declare Jesus Christ to be God in quite a few formulae, one of which is declaring that He is “light from light.” When we conclude this Mass, and every celebration of the usus antiquior, we shall pray the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, one of the three earthly witnesses to the Transfiguration, who declared Christ the divine Word to be the bearer of divine light into the world, shining the torch of Truth and Life into the darkness of Falsehood and Death.
But the darkness still remains, the darkness cast upon the world through the work of Satan and the demons, desiring to corrupt all so that nothing of God will remain. In fact, Satan works to bring about his own light as a means of fooling humanity into abandoning God and following the devils into the pits of hell. It is not the light which so shines as to be impossible to behold, but it is the type of light which a fly pursues before it is burned. And perhaps not so coincidentally, this day marks an anniversary of one of the greatest flashes of this false light seen in this world. Almost 70 years ago today, the atomic bomb was dropped and detonated in war for the first time.
How striking is this juxtaposition of light between the Transfiguration and the bomb. One is the light of divinity shining forth in union with humanity; the other is humanity striving to become as powerful as God. One shows the unity of history as the past work of the Old Testament is brought to fruition in preparation for the inauguration of the New and Eternal Testament; the other is a sharp divide between the morality of the past and the carelessness and recklessness of the current age. One draws the soul in awe and some terror towards the realization that there is a being greater than all of humanity who contains all power and glory within His very being; the other arouses terror and a little awe at the sheer power that one man can have at his fingertips over nearly the entire human race. The one is centered upon the man who declared “I have not come to destroy souls but to save”; the other occasioned the quote “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
To which light will humanity turn: the true Light radiating from the King of the Universe, the King reigning from the Cross; or the false light which dazzles for a while but in the end kills all it touches? Dear brothers and sisters, we must pray that we at least will choose to follow after the Light of Christ, that we will desire to pursue that Morning Star which never sets, that we will strive after the Light no matter how dark the times may be. We must listen to Him so as to be continually converted from the temptations of the darkness and that we may imitate the saints in radiating the light of Christ in our own lives. We must discover all which inhibits the light from shining through our works so that we may truly be the light-bearers that we promised to be at our baptism, when we received the light of the risen and triumphant Christ and were called upon to keep that light burning for His return.
Let us then adore Christ in His majesty and glory, God truly incarnate and become one of us. Let us make a tabernacle for Him in our hearts that He may find rest within us and be our light in times of darkness. Let us receive Him worthily and fruitfully in the hidden glory of the Eucharist, so that His light may become our own light. And let us never fail to seek His pardon for those times when we have succumbed to the darkness by receiving the illuminating wonder of His mercy at the absolution of the priest. Finally, may we take up as our cry these words of Blessed John Henry Newman:Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home -
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene - one step enough for me.
May we be lead by that kindly Light to the glories of eternal life, where we shall share in the joys of that light for endless ages to come.
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