Eyewitnesses of His Majesty, Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Joan of Arc Parish, Orleans, MA
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
August 6, 2023
Dan 7:9-10.13-14, Ps 97, 2 Pet 1:16-19, Mt 17:1-9

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• Today we, like the apostles Peter, James and John, accompany Jesus up an exceedingly high mountain to witness him transfigured in glory. Each year on the Second Sunday of Lent we make this journey as we focus on how Jesus, through giving his three closest apostles a foretaste of his divine glory, was preparing them for when they would see him transfigured in blood, pain and suffering on Good Friday. Every year, however, since 1456, the Roman Catholic Church has also celebrated the Transfiguration on August 6, as a means by which we can focused on Jesus’ glory in its own right and on the other lessons of this important scene in the life of Jesus, which, since 2002, has constituted the fourth Luminous mystery of the Rosary we ponder each Thursday.
• What are the lessons Jesus wants to teach us?
• The first is about exertion that the life of faith entails. Jesus could have prayed with Peter, James and John anywhere, but he wanted to take them on a strenuous hike, a journey of several hours uphill to the summit of what St. Matthew calls an exceedingly high mountain. At the top of the mountain, Jesus miraculously conversed with Moses, who several times climbed up Mount Sinai, and Elijah, who ascended Mount Horeb and Mount Carmel, in order to meet with God. By having his three apostles climb a mountain with him to pray, Jesus was teaching them that faith, that prayer, often requires a great effort. Many times we would prefer to go downhill rather than climb uphill. Many times we would prefer just to stay where we are and build a booth for God so that we can converse with him at our convenience. Today Jesus beckons all of us to join him in the holy exertion of Christian faith and life, so that we may be strengthened to make the climb of faith all the way to the heavenly Jerusalem.
• The second lesson is recognizing who the Lord Jesus really is. At the top of the mountain, the three apostles see Jesus’ face become radiant like the sun and his clothes become dazzlingly white. This is the fulfillment of what we see in today’s first reading when the Prophet Daniel in a vision saw God with clothing as bright as snow and hair as white as wool, whose throne had flames and wheels of burning fire as one like a Son of Man received everlasting dominion. The apostles beheld that divinity appearing through Jesus’ clothes and flesh. The Lord wanted them to see who he really was so that they wouldn’t lose faith when they would look on him transfigured in blood. Similarly, it’s crucial for us to recognize and revere the divinity of Jesus that he is unlike anyone who has ever lived, that he is indeed the God of glory, the Lord, King and Most High over all the earth, and that we should never take our relationship with the him for granted or place anyone or anything above him.
• The third lesson is about paying attention to Jesus. After he had been enveloped by a bright cloud, a sign of God’s holiness like we see happened on Mt. Sinai or on the tent of meeting for the Ark of the Covenant in the desert, God the Father spoke from the cloud saying, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” This command of God is rather strange. What had Peter, James and John been doing for the previous two years but listening to Jesus? They had been hearing him preach in the synagogues and in the Temple area, on mountain sides and grassy plains, from boats, in houses, and along their lengthy journeys. They had listened to the Sermon on the Mount and many parables. They had been hearing him continually. But God the Father knew that they were only selectively listening, and they were particularly tone deaf to Jesus’ difficult words about his upcoming death on the Cross. God the Father wanted to help the apostles listen to Jesus’ words as words to be done. He wants similarly to help us to become doers of the word. He desires to help us, like Mary, to say, “let it be done to me according to your word.” He longs to help us, every Mass, to listen attentively to the Word of God and put what we hear into practice.
• The fourth lesson is about our fears. When Peter, James and John heard the voice of God the Father, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. Jesus came, touched them, and said, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” We can sometimes be afraid of God, as if he is first and foremost a stern disciplinarian waiting for us to trip up, as if he were an angry and mean God who can’t wait to punish us for our sins and send us to Hell forever. Even when good things happen to us, we sometimes want to flee in fear because of our unworthiness. If our relationship with God is based on fear, we’ll be insecure about everything. Likewise we’re living in an age of anxiety in which so many people, especially young people, are eaten alive by worries. To the apostles and to all of us, Jesus says, “Rise and do not be afraid.” Jesus wants to lift us up, in this world and forever. He wants to help us to live boldly by the power of his resurrection. If crucifixion couldn’t even keep him dead in the tomb, then why should we be afraid of anything, even martyrdom? This morning in Lisbon, at the end of World Youth Day, Pope Francis finished his homily to 1.5 million young people urging them to interiorize Jesus’ words and to repeat them to himself, “Be not afraid.” By his Transfiguration in glory, Jesus wants us all to live with the confidence that flows from our relationship with him.
• The fifth and last lesson is about sharing our faith. At the end of the scene of the Transfiguration, Jesus told the three apostles, “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Jesus didn’t want news of his divinity to become a distraction to his public ministry, manipulated by those who had worldly expectations of the mission of the Messiah. But now that the Son of Man has indeed risen from the dead, he wants that mystery and all the mysteries and lessons of his life boldly shared with everyone. He wants to make us joyful to share it, because we recognize that our faith is the greatest gift that we could give toothers, to communicate that Jesus has and is the answer to the deepest questions human beings have, that he is the medicine to the various cancers that afflict our souls. At the end of today’s second reading, as St. Peter recalled being with Jesus at the top of the mountain and hearing God the Father’s “unique declaration” that Jesus is “my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” and that as a result he became an “eyewitness of his majesty.” He told his fellow Christians with the credibility of such an eyewitness that Jesus’ transfiguration is a “prophetic message that is altogether reliable” and urged us to “do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” Jesus’ transfiguration, in other words, is a prophetic message, a predictive sign, about the Resurrection Jesus wishes to give us all and St. Peter summons us to keep it in front of us always as a light to guide our steps. He also calls us to share it with others as the light to guide their path, too.
• This weekend, as St. Joan of Arc Church is enveloped with the displays of the Eucharistic Miracles of the World put together by now Blessed Carlo Acutis, we are able to relate all of these lessons of Jesus’ transfiguration to our Eucharistic Lord. In the Eucharist, Jesus is transfigured not in glory but in humility. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, on the Cross Jesus’ divinity was hidden; in the Eucharist even his humanity is concealed; but underneath the humble appearances is the God of glory, the Lord, the King of Kings, the Most High over all the earth. For our Eucharistic Lord, we build a booth — in fact beautiful tabernacles and whole Churches —and he in turn seeks to make us his tabernacle, coming to abide in us just as for nine months he lived in the womb of Mary his mother. Jesus wants us to make the effort to come to be with him, to climb over whatever mountains of other work and priorities to be with him, to labor not for food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life. He wants to help us listen to what he tells us each day in the Gospel and especially to his words, “Take and eat, this is my Body,” “Take and drink, this is the chalice of my blood,” and “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day.” Especially through the gift of his mercy in the Sacrament of Confession, he wants to help us to rise and not be afraid to receive him because through his word he can heal our soul and make us worthy. And he wants us boldly to share this incredible gift with others. These are all truths that Blessed Carlo Acutis, who made this series on Eucharistic Miracles of the World between 11-15 years of age, lived and desired the whole world to live, as we will explore this afternoon in the presentation at 2 pm. Through Blessed Carlo’s intercession, we ask God for the grace to live these lessons, especially with regard to Jesus in the Eucharist, to the full.
• Peter told Jesus in today’s Gospel, “Lord it is good that we are here.” It is indeed always good when we make the effort, like Peter, James and John, to come to Mass, when we listen to his words, when we behold the glory of his humility, when we become his tabernacle and are strengthened, as eyewitnesses of Jesus’ majesty, to bear witness to him and the meaning of his transfiguration as a lamp in the midst of darkness, until the dawn of the eternal eighth day dawns and Christ the morning star rises definitely in our hearts. God bless you!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

As they were coming down from the mountain,
Jesus charged them,
“Do not tell the vision to anyone
until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

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