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Friends of the Rosary,

We commemorate today the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord (MT 17:1-9), the biblical passage we reflect on the fourth Luminous mystery.

Before his Passion and Death, Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them to a retired mountain. There, the Man-God appeared transfigured in a brilliant white light. The three apostles present were wonderfully delighted with the glorious vision, which included Moses and Elijah.

The Transfiguration showed that Jesus’ redeeming work had two phases: the suffering of the Cross and the glory of the Resurrection.

The Transfiguration anticipated the glory of heaven, where we will see the Lord face to face.

[Written by Mikel A | TheRosaryNetwork.org]

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In his address before the Angelus on August 6, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI described how the events of the transfiguration display Christ as the “full manifestation of God’s light.”

This light, which shines forth from Christ both at the transfiguration and after his resurrection, is ultimately triumphant over “the power of the darkness of evil.”

The Pope stressed that the feast of the Transfiguration is an important opportunity for believers to look to Christ as “the light of the world,” and to experience the kind of conversion which the Bible frequently describes as an emergence from darkness to light.

“In our time too,” Pope Benedict said, “We urgently need to emerge from the darkness of evil, to experience the joy of the children of light!”

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Comment of Bishop Barron today:

Friends, today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. What does this event mean? Thomas Aquinas’ treatment in the Summa theologiae sums up much of the wisdom of the Church Fathers on this matter.

Aquinas says that it was fitting for Christ to be manifested in his glory to his select Apostles, because those who walk an arduous path need a clear sense of the goal of their journey. The arduous path is this life, with all of its attendant sufferings, failures, disappointments, and injustices.

Beset by all of this negativity, a pilgrim on life’s way can easily succumb to despair unless he is granted a glimpse of the glory that comes at the end of his striving. And this is why, Aquinas argues, Jesus, before journeying to Jerusalem to walk the way of the cross, for a brief moment allows the light to shine through him.

Though we live and move within the confines of this world of space and time, we are not meant, finally, for this dimensional system; we are summoned to life on high with God, in a transformed state of existence. The Transfiguration, therefore, awakens our sense of wonder and steels our courage to face the darkness here below.

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