WEEKLY REFLECTION
Today we celebrate the Transfiguration rather than the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  Normally the Transfiguration is a Feast and occurs during the week and many people don’t even know that the Feast has been celebrated. But when this Feast falls on a Sunday, it takes precedence over the Sunday of Ordinary Time.

This Feast of the Transfiguration invites us to look at the mystery of Jesus Christ, living among us.  This Jesus is truly God and yet truly human.  At the time of His baptism and then at the time of the Transfiguration, the Divine breaks through and a voice is heard: “This is my beloved Son.”  The Baptism of Jesus is the beginning of His public ministry, but it is also a baptism into death, a baptism into our human condition, a baptism into the will of the Father.  The Transfiguration echoes that baptism: it is a preparation for the death of the Lord, a preparation to see Him die in our human condition, a preparation for his complete accepting of the will of His father. 

Today’s Gospel is from Saint Matthew. We should note that the Transfiguration was experienced by Peter, James, and John – not by the other Apostles or disciples or followers of Jesus – not even by Mary His Mother. Peter will be placed by Jesus as the head of His followers. James is the first to die for Jesus. John is the disciple that Jesus loved.  Jesus does not always share with us his reasoning about why He does things and so we are invited to wonder – as surely did the other followers of Jesus. And even though Jesus tells these three not to share the vision with anyone until He, Jesus, has been raised from the dead, surely the others were aware that something had happened. We can try to imagine what answer these three would have given when the others asked: what happened up there?

For us, the Transfiguration draws us deeper into the mystery of Jesus. Our faith and the practice of our faith must rest on our belief that Jesus, fully human, is God. God breaks through into our human history once more in Jesus Christ. The Incarnation is not that God sent another Prophet or another Anointed one. It is that, yes, but this Prophet, this Anointed One, is God Himself, present in our human condition, One like us in all things but sin. God loves us!