6 August 2013
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
“You will do well to be attentive to it [the prophetic message] as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” (2 Pt. 1:16-19)
The supernatural is much missing these days, not least in the experience many have in church. At least part of this comes from the great modern emphasis on transforming this world, and not paying attention to any other world. Yet our hearts are made for One Who is infinitely other than anything in His Creation. Our hearts are made to transcend all this world in union of love with the God to whom His Creation can only point. When we try to deny that, we begin to suffer from spiritual claustrophobia. That is, we begin to experience hell.
Jesus is the full gift of the Trinity to us, the living link that opens for us the way to the heart of God, for He is the heart of God. That heart beats in union with a perfect human heart which has chosen to take into Himself all our imperfections so that we might be made perfect, and so able to enter into the perfect love – the light – of God. This is revealed on the feast celebrating this most sacred mystery, traditionally located at Mt. Tabor in Galilee, where Jesus unveiled – re-vealed – His glory to His chosen friends. This glory builds on the human, earthly exodus led by His prophet Moses and transforms it into an exodus from the slavery to sin and death into the light of God’s eternal love.
Deprived of the supernatural, we turn to the preternatural – ghost stories, haunted houses, battles with demons. The infinite longing of our hearts is made for, and only satisfied by, the truly supernatural, by the One from whom all that is derives. Today, the Church celebrates the foretaste of glory revealed on Mt. Tabor. Come, let us adore Him.