Holy Transfiguration

Homily
SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT
12 MARCH 2006

Mark 9: 2-10

[Mark 9:2] After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,
[Mark 9:3] and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.
[Mark 9:4] Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus.
[Mark 9:5] Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
[Mark 9:6] He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.
[Mark 9:7] Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
[Mark 9:8] Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.
[Mark 9:9] As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
[Mark 9:10] So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.
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The Mountain of the Lord

Holy Scripture tells us: "come climb the mountain of the Lord", as we read in Isaiah 2:

[Is 2:3] ...many peoples shall come and say: "Come, let us climb the LORD'S mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths." For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

The mountain of the Lord has many designations, which include:

Sinai, Tabor, the mount of the beatitudes, Golgotha, and the mount of the ascension.

In today's Gospel, we see described the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor. This Gospel is read on the Second Sunday of Lent because of a tradition that the Transfiguration occurred forty days before Good Friday.

We see Peter, James, and John ascend Mount Tabor with the Lord, Who is joined by Moses and Elias, and Who is then transfigured before their eyes of the flesh, manifesting to them His divinity.

Even this startling event was only a faint, symbolic adumbration of the full glory of the Beatific Vision, intended by God as the fulfillment of our supernatural destiny.

The Eyes of Faith: the Gift of Understanding

We ascend Tabor with the Lord, where there He is transfigured before our eyes of faith, with which we perceive His divinity. What Peter, John, and James saw with their eyes of flesh, we perceive even more deeply with our eyes of faith. As St. Augustine said,

"What the sun is to the eyes of the flesh, that is the Lord to the eyes of the heart."

By "eyes of faith" (also called "eyes of the heart") is meant one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gift of understanding. (We often say "I see" to mean "I understand".) Catholic tradition states that

"The gift of understanding enlightens us by shedding a clear, searching, and extraordinary light on the meaning of revealed truth, and by giving us a certitude that what God has revealed bears such and such a sense and no other."

It often happens that some persons place a wrong reliance on the natural powers of their intellects when contemplating the things of God, along with the things of the created order of nature, and less on the Holy Spirit's gift of understanding. The so-called "wise ones" then can end up with less understanding of the things of God than those whom the world deems to be "less wise". Our Lord, who always taught in a direct and simple manner, rejoiced in the gift of understanding given to those He called "childlike":

[Luke 10:21] At that very moment he rejoiced (in) the holy Spirit and said, "I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit enable each of us to see the Glory of the Lord with the eyes of faith.

[2 Cor 3:17] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
[2 Cor 3:18] All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Ascending Tabor

How do we ascend Tabor? Three ways to ascend Tabor are prayer, prayerful reading of the Scripture, and participating at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Prayer

We ascend Tabor by prayer, especially prayer to the Holy Spirit. We are on Tabor with James, the apostle of prayer. If we do not have immediate access to the many prayers to the Holy Spirit that are in the spiritual treasury of the Church, we can at least memorize the beginning of the Church's traditional prayer to the Spirit:

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

Scripture

We ascend Tabor by our prayerful reading of scripture. We are on Tabor with Moses and Elias, who represent the Law and the Prophets. We are on Tabor with the evangelist John, and with New Testament writers Peter and James.

Mass

We ascend both Golgotha and Tabor with John each time we participate in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. We ascend Golgotha, since the Mass is the re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. We ascend Tabor because we perceive the glory of God in the Eucharist, with the eyes of faith. The church reminds us that Jesus present in the Holy Eucharist is present in His full glory no less than the glory He has seated at the right hand of His Father in heaven.

Coming Down from Tabor

Coming down from Tabor, we see the world around us anew with these same eyes of faith.

We no longer assent only intellectually to the teaching that Christ is in the poor, we now see Christ in the poor with the eyes of faith.

We no longer assent only intellectually to the teaching that the things of this world, good in themselves, are to be used only as stepping stones to heaven--we see that this is so with the eyes of faith.

In his first letter to the Colossians, St. Paul wrote:

[Col 1:24] Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.

We no longer assent only intellectually to this mysterious teaching that we are to complete the sufferings lacking in the suffering of Christ, we see that this is so with the eyes of faith.

When we see with the eyes of faith, we see as Jesus sees.

When we see as Jesus sees, we then come to love what we see with the love that Jesus has, for to see as Jesus sees is the foundation of loving what Jesus loves.

We see the world as Jesus sees it, and hence come to love the world as Jesus loves it.

We see our loved ones as Jesus sees them, and hence come to love them as Jesus loves them.

We see our enemies as Jesus sees them, and hence come to love them as Jesus loves them.

We ascend Tabor so that we may see with the eyes of faith; so that we may see as Jesus sees. We see so that we may love as Jesus loves, in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father.

Come, let us together climb the mountain of the Lord!