06/08/2006 - TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR
LORD - Year B
First Reading Daniel 7:9-10.13-14 Psalm 96/95
Second Reading 2 Peter 1:16-19 Gospel Mark 9:2-10
Saint Paul speaks of the Gospel as a message which comes from the mercy of
God for a humanity that lives in total disorder and, in so doing, is assured
of great suffering. At the beginning of the Letter to the Romans, speaking of
the pagans, St. Paul writes: "God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts
to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they
exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason, God
gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse
for unnatural. And, in the same way, also the men, giving up natural intercourse
with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless
acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
And, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased
mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind
of wickedness, evil, covetousness and malice; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit and craftiness. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty,
boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless,
heartless and ruthless. They know God's decree, that those who practice such
things deserve to die; yet they, not only, do them but even applaud others who
practice them" (Romans 1:24:32). The Apostle tells us that sexual perversions
confuse us, and render man incapable of living peacefully. They seem to be a
terrible punishment from God for those who refuse to believe in Him. Do we wish
to heal the family and the society from many ills? If so, we must expose and
direct their members to purity and chastity!
Today, the Sunday liturgy is set aside in place of the Trasfiguration of Our
Lord. In the Orient, Christians celebrated this mystery since antiquity because
they understood the great importance of this excerpt, narrated in the Gospel,
the value of contemplation, of prayer and of a life exposed to the mystery of
the death and resurrection of the Lord. In the western world, this feast, already
present on this date in some local Churches, was introduced in the Liturgical
Roman Calendar by Pope Callisto III in 1457, as thanksgiving for the victory
obtained over Turkey in Belgrade on August 6th of the previous year.
The Reading from the prophet Daniel guides us in comprehending the vision which
the three Apostles experienced on the mountain: the One that appears wearing
the pure white robe is worthy of divine honours and will receive, from God Himself
"glory and reign, an eternal power", a "reign which can never
be destroyed"! He is "a son of man" who has no equals. The robes
that Jesus wears, on the mount, will become "white as the light":
he is the son of man, the king of an indestructible kingdom, who reigns with
the power of God! The evangelist wants to draw our attention, above all, on
the words that the Apostles heard and that Peter remembered his whole life:
"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to Him!" These words brought
such fear to the three disciples that they fell to the ground. Only the hand
of Jesus gave them back life and joy. The word that comes from the heavens has
the power of a great revelation.
Not only is Jesus seen as the Son of God, but God is, also seen and the Father
of Jesus! This is not a play on words: God must not ever be considered as unreachable,
or as a being so great that He is a stranger in the life of men. God is the
One who wants to be known, in fact, He wants to be touched and heard by them.
God wants to be seen in the life of a man, of Jesus; He wants to be heard through
His voice, sure and sweet. Through Him, God presents His wishes to men, who,
until now, thought that He was banished to a sacred place, which defends Him
from our miserable life! See, how beautiful the Gospel is: now God speaks to
men, and He always remains close to them in the person of a man, of Jesus. He
is the friend of the glorious persons who displayed the greatness and the truth
of God, Moses and Elijah, but He surpasses them so much so that they disappear,
while He remains. He remains, and continues to speak and to reveal His own path,
which is not finished by this great manifestation of His glory, but will pass
through the greater glory, the one which gives the fullness of His love and
the love of the Father, the Cross! Coming down from the mount, in fact, and
giving orders to remain silent, Jesus speaks of His "resurrection from
the dead". These are the words that remain fixed in our heart. We meditate
on these words, by offering our suffering and our commitment to God to live
as His children, sincerely, and not be distracted or disoriented by the many
comforts of which the world presents as indispensable and irrefutable.
Jesus, You are the Beloved Son of the Father: continue to show the face and
heart of God through the Church, now that you are present, and hidden, in the
hearts of Your faithful! Let me hear Your voice and let me feel Your glance!
I will bring Your Word in my heart, I will obey, so that my face will shine
with the reflection of Your glory.