Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

Happy Feast of the Transfiguration!

Today, we celebrate one of the most wonderful events in the life of Our Lord: when, on Mt Tabor, Jesus was transfigured before three of his disciples, his appearance changing into a radiant brightness, his raiment becoming (as the old prayer has it) “white and glistering,” shining dazzlingly. While transfigured, Jesus converses with Moses and Elijah, the disciples hear a thunderous voice from heaven announcing, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” …and then, just as amazingly as the vision suddenly began, it vanishes.

We don’t hear the story of the Transfiguration in any of our Office readings today: our lectionary appoints Luke’s version of it for Mass, but no versions of it for the Office. Instead, one of our readings from this morning speaks of Moses ascending Mt Sinai to receive the law, while the other sees Paul talking of proclaiming the Gospel and declaring “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Some theologians have suggested that when Moses ascends the mountain, he meets Jesus in the moment of his Transfiguration, time and space obediently and blissfully re-arranging themselves according to the irresistible prerogatives of grace, a single incandescent moment of revelation serving to disclose the law of righteousness and to unveil a measure of the glory of the Righteous One. I’m definitely partial to this suggestion: it deepens the Mystery by underscoring its inexplicable marvelousness; I feel like our approach to the Mystery, when trying to express it, shouldn’t attempt to explain it, but should always seek to heighten an apprehension of its awe-ful wonder by which we discover ourselves more fully given to the Mystery.

Beloved, I realize I’m writing “Mystery” as if there’s only one. Because, to be honest, I think there is only one—the Mystery of Love that is Jesus Christ: all other mysteries of our faith are facets and dimensions of this Central Diamond that gratuitously and graciously throws light into our world, into our hearts, minds, and souls…and reveals them as somehow tributary to the Mystery, derived from it and, in turn, revealing it. In fact, the Transfiguration we celebrate today is not just something that happens to Jesus, but something that uncovers the capacity of the redeemed creation to bear and reveal the scintillating glory of God. In his oration on the Transfiguration, Orthodox priest Sergius Bulgakov writes that “the glorification of the world has already been accomplished, although it has not yet been manifested. However, in the light of Tabor, this authentic future form of the world is revealed to the chosen as if in a flash of lightning. The world is present before us in its transfigured state.” He goes on to write that the Transfiguration “[signifies] an authentic revelation of the world in glory, a manifestation of the Beauty of the world which conquers us because it convinces us.”

Which is to say…the Transfiguration reveals a dimension of the beauty of the New Creation, reveals who you are becoming and who you are meant to be in Jesus Christ: fully alive and fully bright and fully aflame with the blazing fire of God’s Love; fully given to the Mystery.

My prayer for us this day, Beloved, is that the light of glory revealed in the Transfiguration would illumine all the corners of our lives, would make us shine with its light; that the fire of Love would so burn within us that we would become living flames of Love; that the Mystery would so unfold in our souls that we would discover ourselves embraced by its marvelousness as we ourselves—the fullness of our lives—become facets of the Central Diamond.

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+