The Transfiguration of the Lord - Feast - Year C
Commentary of the day
Saint Leo the Great (?-c.461), Pope and Doctor of the Church
Sermon 51, 2-6 ; SC 74 bis
"The glory to be revealed in us” (Rm 8,18)
“Jesus took Peter, James and John his brother” and, taking them up a high mountain apart, he revealed to them the radiance of his glory. For, even if they had understood that God's majesty dwelt within him, they did not realize that his body, veiling his divinity, shared in God's power. This is why, only a few days before, our Lord had expressly promised that “some of those here” among his disciples, “will not taste death before they have seen the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom” (Mt 16,28), that is to say in the kingly splendor... particularly suited to the human nature he had assumed...
This transfiguration had as its first purpose to remove the scandal of the cross from the disciples' hearts, so that the humiliation of his Passion, voluntarily suffered, would not disturb the faith of those who had witnessed the greatness of his hidden dignity. But, with the same foresight, the transfiguration fixed in Jesus' Church the hope intended to sustain it so that the members of Christ's Body might understand what sort of change would one day be brought about also in them. For they were called to share the same glory they had seen shining in their Leader and Head.
Our Lord himself had said in this regard, speaking of the majesty of his coming: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Mt 13,43). And the apostle Paul stated the same thing when he said: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us” (Rm 8,18). And elsewhere: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ you life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory” (Col 3,3-4).
| Tuesday, August 06, 2013 The Transfiguration of the Lord (Feast) |
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