Pope's Intentions
Universal: That refugees, forced by violence to abandon their homes, may find a generous welcome and the protection of their rights.
For Evangelization: That Christians in Oceania may joyfully announce the faith to all the people of that region.
The Transfiguration of the Lord - Feast - Year A
Commentary of the day
Anastasius of Sinai (? – after 700), monk
Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration
"Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him"
Today our Lord truly appeared on the mountain. Today, human nature, which was previously created in the form of God but obscured by the formless figures of idols, has been transfigured into man's former beauty, created “in the image and likeness of God” (Gn 1,26)… Today man, who had been dressed in garments of skin, plain and dark (Gn 3,21), has put on divine clothing on the mountain, “clothed in light as in a robe” (Ps 103[104],2)…
Moses looked a second time at the fire that did not consume the bush (Ex 3,2) but gives life to all flesh…, and he said : « Now I see you : you who really are and who exist eternally; you who are with the Father and have said to me: ‘I am who am’ (v.14)… Now I see you whom I longed to see before, saying: ‘Let me see your glory’ (Ex 33,18). No longer do I see your back while hidden in the cleft of the rock (v.23), but I see you, O God, lover of humankind, hidden in human form. No longer do you shelter me with your right hand (v.22) but you are the Right Hand of the Most High who has been revealed to the world. You are the Mediator of both the Old and the New Covenants, O God from of old, new man…
« You who said to me on Sinai: ‘No one can see me and live’ (v.20): how is it that you can now be contemplated face to face on earth, in the flesh? How is it that you dwell amongst men? You who are life and give life, how is it that you are hastening towards death? You who dwell in the midst of those beings who are in the highest heavens, how is it that you make your way lower than the most abandoned of beings, towards those who are dead?... For you wish to appear too to those who have been sleeping for ages past, to visit the patriarchs in the dwelling places of the dead, to descend to deliver Adam from his pains”… For it is thus that “the just will shine out at the resurrection” (Mt 13,43); it is thus that they will be glorified even as they are transfigured.