Second Sunday in Lent
From the most remote Christian antiquity, the second Sunday of Lent has been dedicated to the Transfiguration of Our Lord, an event that occurred in the weeks before the Passion. Its immediate purpose was to fortify the three apostles, Peter, James and John, and to prepare them for the shock of His impending suffering. Indeed, the same three apostles were the ones Our Blessed Lord called upon to witness His agony in the garden. John would stand at the foot of the cross, and Peter himself knew he made his way into the crowd that witnessed the crucifixion.
The event, however, had other objectives. First and foremost, Our Lord wanted to reveal His divinity by allowing the eternal splendour to, as it were, escape for a brief moment. As St Thomas points out, the Transfiguration was not a miracle. What was miraculous was all the rest of the time of the life of Our Lord when His divinity did not shine out. Indeed, had it not been for that constant miracle, His contemporaries could not have approached Him, for the divine light would have blinded them.
In many of the ancient homilies of the Fathers on the Transfiguration, one finds oneself drawn into the divine splendour. With timid, hesitant words, they seek to convey something of the experience, and one feels the desire grow in us to contemplate the Saviour’s divinity. This contemplation is good for us, as St Peter says: It is good for us to be here. Indeed, in a dark world, weighed down by the sins and sufferings in and around us, it is all too easy to lose hope and confidence. Lifting up our eyes to the Saviour transfigured on Mount Tabor is one of the best ways to arouse within us the virtue of hope. As St Paul points out, the bright light that shone from His sacred humanity will one day be ours when our mortal bodies rise in glory on the last day (cf. Ph 3:21). In the meantime, we must patiently await the restoration of our own humanity.
Another great lesson of the Transfiguration is given to us indirectly by St Paul in today’s epistle. He reminds us that Christ our Lord has shown us how to live our lives in a manner that is pleasing to God, and by doing this, we are to become holy. The point we must not miss is that the apostle links holiness with the virtue of chastity. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from fornication (1 Th 4:3). In this passage, the word “fornication” is not taken in its strict sense but in the broad sense of any sin against the virtue of chastity, any use of the procreative faculty outside of its God-given purpose, which is the natural union of husband and wife that remains always open to life. To engage the bodily organs in pleasure outside of that context is to profane them. This is why St Paul continues: Every one of you should know how to possess his vessel (that is to say his body) in sanctification and honour, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God (1Th 4:4-5).
Indeed, it is one of the tragic marks of a way of life without God that the desires of the flesh reign supreme, leaving in their wake a long series of disgraceful and degrading actions that lower humans to the level of the beast. Paul seems to be saying that this is almost inevitable for those who know not God, for there is no aspiration to higher things and, more importantly, no grace to achieve them. In his epistle to the Romans (ch 1), the same apostle points out that failure to acknowledge God in His creation, to give Him praise and thanksgiving for all the marvels of which we are the daily witnesses and beneficiaries exposes the soul to fall into folly. This folly manifests itself in a life in which the flesh takes control, leading to the worst kind of enslavement, that of the soul to the flesh. In many parts of today’s world, andparticularly in virtually all the television and movies, the flesh is glorified in its most base aspects. Under the guise of freedom, license is promoted, and slavery is the result. To quote St Paul again to the Philippians (3:19): their God is their belly: and their glory is in their shame.
The Incarnation was the great and universal remedy to this human tragedy. This is why the Transfiguration is such a central event. It demonstrates the true glory of the body and its ultimate destiny: to see God face to face and be united with Him in eternity. But before we can get there, we must first be transformed, and that transformation goes of necessity through the cross. The Gospel tells us that while our Lord was seen in glory, Moses and Elias appeared together and were speaking with Him. Only St Luke tells us the subject of their conversation: they were speaking of His exodus, His passion, His going out of this world. It is as if to say that if we want to share in the glory of Our Lord, we must be ready to share in His passion. The restoration of the flesh can only come through the putting to death of the desires of the flesh. This, of course, happens inevitably at the moment of bodily death, but only those who will be admitted to contemplate the eternal glory of God who have, in this life, learned how to keep their passions in check.
Psalm 31, one of the penitential psalms in which we are encouraged to pray, especially during Lent, ends with these words: Do not become like the horse and the mule, who have no understanding. With bit and bridle bind fast their jaws, who come not near unto thee. Many are the scourges of the sinner, but mercy shall encompass him that hopeth in the Lord(Ps 31:8-10). In other words, sinners who let the flesh roam wild are likened to brute beasts who can only be held in check by bit, bridle and many scourges. If men act like beasts, they are treated like beasts. But as for those who hope in the Lord and seek shelter under the shadow of His wings, who beseech Him day and night for the grace of fidelity, they will be encompassed by His mercy, not only at the hour of death but already in this life. They will learn to make their way through this valley of the shadow of death without undergoing the death of the soul. The key to achieving this is to steadily lift up our eyes to Jesus on the mount of the Transfiguration, to never take our eyes off Him, but rather let ourselves be enticed by the sweetness and of His beauty and the brightness of His eternal glory.
