From: Romans 8:31b-34
Trust in God
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Commentary:
31-39. The elect will emerge unscathed and victorious from all attacks, dangers
and sufferings and will do so not through their own efforts but by virtue of the all-
powerful aid of him who has loved them from all eternity and who did not hesitate
to have his own Son die for their salvation. It is true that as long as we are on
this earth we cannot attain salvation, but we are assured that we will attain it pre-
cisely because God will not withhold all the graces we need to obtain this happy
outcome: all that is needed is that we desire to receive this divine help. Nothing
that happens to us can separate us from the Lord—not fear of death or love of life,
not the bad angels or devils, not the princes or the powers of this world, nor the
sufferings we undergo or which threaten us nor the worst that might befall us.
“Paul himself”, St John Chrysostom reminds us, “had to contend with numerous
enemies. The barbarians attacked him; his custodians laid traps for him; even
the faithful, sometimes in great numbers, rose against him; yet Paul always
came out victorious. We should not forget that the Christian who is faithful to the
laws of his God will defeat both men and Satan himself” (”Hom. on Rom.”, 15).
This is the attitude which enables us to live as children of God, who fear neither
life nor death: “Our Lord wants us to be in the world and to love the world but
without being worldly. Our Lord wants us to remain in this world—which is now
so mixed up and where the clamor of lust and disobedience and purposeless
rebellion can be heard—to teach people to live with joy [...]. Don’t be afraid of the
paganized world: our Lord has in fact chosen us to be leaven, salt and light in
this world. Don’t be worried. The world won’t harm you unless you want it to. No
enemy of our soul can do anything if we don’t consent. And we won’t consent,
with the grace of God and the protection of our Mother in heaven” (S. Bernal,
“Monsignor Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer”, p. 213).
31. This exclamation of the Apostle vividly reveals the full extent of the love of
God the Father, who not only listens to our prayers but anticipates our needs.
God is with us, he is always by our side. This is a cry expressing confidence
and optimism, despite our personal wretchedness; it is firmly based on our
sense of divine sonship. “Clothed in grace, we can cross mountains (cf. Ps 103:
10), and climb the hill of our Christian duty, without halting on the way. If we use
these resources with a firm purpose and beg our Lord to grant us an ever increa-
sing hope, we shall possess the infectious joy of those who now they are chil-
dren of God: ‘If God is for us, who is against us?’ (Rom 8:31) Let us be opti-
mists. Moved by the power of hope, we shall fight to wipe away the trail of filth
and slime left by the sowers of hatred. We shall find a new joyful perspective to
the world, seeing that it has sprung forth beautiful and fair from the hands of God.
We shall give it back to him with that same beauty” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of
God”, 219).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Mark 9:2-10
The Transfiguration
[9] And as they were coming down the mountain, He charged them to tell no one
what they had seen, until the Son of Man should have risen from the dead. [10]
So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead
meant.
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Commentary:
2-10. We contemplate in awe this manifestation of the glory of the Son of God
to three of His disciples. Ever since the Incarnation, the divinity of our Lord has
usually been hidden behind His humanity. But Christ wishes to show, to these
favorite disciples, who will later be pillars of the Church, the splendor of His di-
vine glory, in order to encourage them to follow the difficult way that lies ahead,
fixing their gaze on the happy goal which is awaiting them at the end. This is
why, as St. Thomas comments (cf. “Summa Theologia”, III, q. 45, a. 1), it was
appropriate for Him to give them an insight into His glory. The fact that the
Transfiguration comes immediately after the first announcement of His passion,
and His prophetic words about how His followers would also have to carry His
cross, shows us that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of
God” (Acts 14:22).
What happened at the Transfiguration? To understand this miraculous event in
Christ’s life, we must remember that in order to redeem us by His passion and
death our Lord freely renounced divine glory and became man, assuming flesh
which was capable of suffering and which was not glorious, becoming like us
in every way except sin (cf. Hebrew 4:15). In the Transfiguration, Jesus Christ
willed that the glory which was His as God and which His soul had from the mo-
ment of the Incarnation, should miraculously become present in His body. “We
should learn from Jesus’ attitude in these trials. During His life on earth He did
not even want the glory that belong to Him. Though He had the right to be trea-
ted as God, He took the form of a servant, a slave (cf. Philippians 2:6)” (St. J.
Escrivá, “Christ Is Passing By”, 62). Bearing in mind WHO became man (the
divinity of the person and the glory of His soul), it was appropriate for His body
to be glorious; given the PURPOSE of His Incarnation, it was not appropriate,
usually, for His glory to be evident. Christ shows His glory in the Transfiguration
in order to move us to desire the divine glory which will be given us so that, ha-
ving this hope, we too can understand “that the sufferings of this present time
are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans
8:18).
2. According to Deuteronomy (19:15), to bear witness to anything the evidence
of two or three much concur. Perhaps this is why Jesus wanted three Apostles
to be present. It should be pointed out that these three Apostles were specially
loved by Him; they were with Him also at the raising of the daughter of Jairus
(Mark 5:37) and will also be closest to Him during His agony at Gethsemane
(Mark 14:33). Cf. note on Matthew 17:1-13.
7. This is how St. Thomas Aquinas explains the meaning of the Transfiguration:
“Just as in Baptism, where the mystery of the first regeneration was proclaimed,
the operation of the whole Trinity was made manifest, because the Son Incar-
nate was there, the Holy Spirit appeared under the form of a dove, and the Father
made Himself known in the voice; so also in the Transfiguration, which is the
sign of the second regeneration [the Resurrection], the whole Trinity appears —
the Father in the voice, the Son in the man, the Holy Spirit in the bright cloud;
for just as in Baptism He confers innocence, as signified by the simplicity of the
dove, so in the Resurrection will He give His elect the clarity of glory and the re-
freshment from every form of evil, as signified by the bright cloud” (”Summa Theo-
logiae”, III, q. 45, 1.4 ad 2). For, really, the Transfiguration was in some way an
anticipation not only of Christ’s glorification but also of ours. As St. Paul says,
“it is the same Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children
of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, pro-
vided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Ro-
mans 8:16-17).
10. That the dead would rise was already revealed in the Old Testament (cf. Da-
niel 12:2-3; 2 Maccabees 7:9; 12:43) and was believed by pious Jews (cf. John
11:23-25). However, they were unable to understand the profound truth of the
death and Resurrection of the Lord: they expected a glorious and triumphant
Messiah, despite the prophecy that He would suffer and die (cf. Isaiah 53).
Hence the Apostles’ oblique approach; they too do not dare to directly question
our Lord about His Resurrection.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.