I was really joyful. Once again, the liturgical year had come full swing — we had returned to the Feast of the Transfiguration. After the readings, as we sat back in our pews, I looked forward with a sense of excitement to the homily to follow.

To my surprise, the homilist was an itinerant Pelagianist of my acquaintance, Redemptorist Father David Tobin, CSsR. “Surveys show that sixty percent of Americans don’t like themselves,” he began. “When asked why, they said they felt unease about their personal behavior — guilt and shame are the culprits! No wonder. You know from personal experience that the Catholic Church taught you to be ashamed of yourselves when you were children. Now, know this. People do not commit sins. My ministry consists in helping people to see that they are not sinners — and to heal their unease, their guilt, their shame.”

Then came the pitch. “Now that you feel better about yourselves, buy my religious order’s magazine. It will help you feel good. After all, National Catholic Reporter [an aside — this newspaper is not known for its love of things Catholic] says my order’s magazine is the most balanced of all the religious magazines. Buy it now, and save lots of money . . .”

I was sad that my friend had chosen a church packed with Sunday worshippers to be his forum for bashing the Catholic Church. This essay responds to my unfeigned disappointment. It is the homily I wish I had heard.

The word transfiguration comes into English from the Latin word transfiguratio, from the passive perfect participle transfiguratus that St. Jerome selected for use in the Vulgate Version he produced. It corresponds to the Greek word metamorphosis, ¹ from meta, “change, alter, turn into” and morphe, “form, appearance”. In Greek literature, it is used to refer to events in which (1) the gods appeared in human form or (2) men took on a divine form (as in certain mystery religions, like Mithraism). ² The noun form of the word itself does not appear in the New Testament. ³ The passive perfect participle of the corresponding verb is used of Jesus at Matthew 17:2 ⁴ and at Mark 9:2, ⁵ metamorphothe in Greek signifying “He was transfigured”. ⁶ The transfiguration, since it is a transformation of the appearance of someone who is already present, must be distinguished from a mere apparition or other similar “trick” of the imagination.

That Luke 9:29 ⁷ uses the peculiar construction egeneto heteron meaning “became different” instead of Matthew’s and Mark’s metamorphothe points to an interesting and startling conclusion. Luke writes in a highly exalted and polished literary Greek, and purposely selects words that defeat any reader’s attempts to equate the Gospel event with the practices of Greek mystery religions. Matthew and Mark, by implication, represent rougher and less polished attempts at translation for a wider Mediterranean audience from a much earlier tradition, Aramaic in origin. The original Aramaic tradition has been lost.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE EVENT

The brief summary provided here relies upon the APPENDIX: PARALLEL GOSPEL ACCOUNTS OF THE TRANSFIGURATION given at the end of this paper.

The Gospels agree that prior to the event, Jesus and His disciples had “come to the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi” (Matthew 16:13; Mark 8:27). After the event, Jesus and His disciples proceed on, “into Galilee” (Matthew 17:22; Mark 9:30). After the event, and before proceeding into Galilee, other wonders are worked by Jesus, still in the villages neighboring Caesarea Philippi (Mark 9:30).

The Mount of the Transfiguration is not named by the Gospels. Matthew and Mark agree it was high. 2 Peter 1:18 says it was “holy”, perhaps subsequently considered so by St. Peter because of the event that occurred there.

The accompanying map shows the locations of three mountains associated by at least as many early tradi- tions with the site of the Mount of the Transfiguration: Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel, and Mount Hermon. The map informs the discussion below by giving some idea of the locales and their rela- tive distances.

Mount Tabor, while it has modern advo- cates as well as the attestation from anti- quity of St. Helen (mother of the emperor Constantine), in Jesus’ time boasted on its summit a walled garri- son town built by Antiochus III (father of the outrageous Antio- chus IV “Epiphanes”) in 218 BCE. To get there, Jesus and the disciples would be forced to first pass through Galilee, and afterward return to the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi to continue the ministry before returning to Galilee a second time. Mount Tabor is not high, being only a knoll topping out at a mere 1,843 feet.

Mount Carmel likewise is not high (only 1,800 feet), and worse, would require a return by lengthy journey to the villages in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi before the trip back into the district of Galilee.

This leaves Mount Hermon. A number of villages existed on the ascent of this great mountain, which began just outside and to the north of Caesarea Phi- lippi. Among these were the cult town of Paneas, modern day Banias, and a village situated atop the ruins of the ancient site of Dan. Mount Hermon as the site of the trans- figuration would not require trekking twice through Galilee (as does Mount Tabor), nor would it require a lengthy side trip (as does Mount Carmel). It is, moreover, quite high at 9,232 feet.

The names of the first century villages in the vicinity of Mount Hermon draw out a striking thought. They are all Greek. If Jesus and the disciples spent time preaching in the villages here, their listeners would have been a polyglot group. This in turn lends itself to the belief that perhaps Jesus used and spoke at least a little Greek, maybe even Latin. It is also possible to conclude that the Gospel writers here suggest the beginning of the more universal mission of the Church — one which began when the Master announced the Good News to the pagans on the site of one of the Roman Empire’s most sacred shrines, that of the god Pan located at Paneas.

Jesus has promised His disciples that some of them will not die before they have witnessed the coming of the kingdom in power, alluding to the great event that is about to occur. Six to eight days following the Father’s disclo- sure to Peter that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God, Jesus leads three of His disciples, Peter, James, and John, up an isolated high mountain somewhere in the vicinity of the villages that surround Caesarea Philippi in the foothills of Mount Her- mon. Luke’s Gospel, the “Gospel of Prayer,” ⁸ notes they have gone there to pray.

There, Jesus’ outward appearance is transformed. His face shines like the sun, His vesture becomes white as light, dazzling, glistening, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. Luke specifies that they, too, appear in glory, and that the discussion centers on Jesus’ coming passage which is to be accomplished at Jerusalem. Luke also adds that the disciples were heavy with sleep, and are unaware of what is going on until they awaken and see their Lord in fellowship with the two venerable Old Testament personages.

Luke’s comment “as the men [Moses and Elijah] were parting from Him” seems out of place, for later “they [also Moses and Elijah? or perhaps the three disciples?] entered the cloud” with Jesus. But before the cloud appears, Peter, presuming to speak, seeks the Lord’s permission to erect three booths, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.

Then the bright cloud appears and overshadows the three disciples. From the cloud, the Father’s Voice is heard repeating the words of approbation and consecra- tion uttered by Him on the occasion of His Son’s baptism by John the Baptist. ⁹ The Father insists, “Listen to Jesus, My Son.” Peter had spoken out of turn; simple and attentive listening is better suited to a disciple than brash words.

At the sound of the Voice, Matthew says the disciples fell on their faces. Long ages before, Moses too, on first hearing The Voice, had fallen on his face. ¹⁰ But Jesus comes, touches His disciples, and bids them rise, and to have no fear. Others will soon also fall on their faces, filled with awe in the Garden of Gethsamene as they behold the One Whom they have come to arrest and hear His testimony: “When He said to them, ‘I AM,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” ¹¹

Jesus was now alone again on the mountaintop with His disciples.

To witness this event, Jesus chooses three who will witness the Agony in the Garden. ¹² The scene recalls the theophanies which Moses ¹³ and Elijah ¹⁴ witnessed on the mountain of God. ¹⁵ Now God-Made-Flesh ascends the mountain to be met by these two representatives of the Old Testament, Moses as teacher and law-giver, Elijah as prophet. Not only does God make known His presence, speaking in the midst of cloud and fire, ¹⁶ but Jesus also appears to His disciples in the presence of Moses and Elijah; with them, He is transfigured to show His own true natural glory.

The Old Testament never mentions any kind of transfiguration. Nonetheless, the scene at the top of the mountain is strongly reminiscent of Moses’ ascent of Sinai in Exodus 24. Moses takes three hand-picked holymen with him, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, to witness for him God’s ratification and consecration of the covenant of passage (v. 1-8). The word for passage or departure used by Luke is the Greek exodos, identical in meaning with the Hebrew word yalak. At the close of the story Moses ascends the mountain when God’s glory covers it like a cloud (v. 15). The covering lasts for six days (v. 16), the amount of time between the confession of Peter and the transfiguration. Moses enters the cloud of glory, bright like a devouring fire, called there by the Voice (v. 16-18). The motifs of glory, passage, The Voice, Master, three disciples, mountain, brightness, cloud, vision, and listen found here in Exodus 24 recur unmistakably in the transfiguration narratives. Jesus’ face, shining from within and enlightening the hearts and minds of the disciples from without evokes the aspect of Moses in Exodus 34:29-35 which shone with a brightness impressed upon it from without by the God Who is Himself Glory.

The evangelists are careful to use terms in the Greek that point out the nature of this transformation. The outward appearance is the only thing that is changed, and then only to give a clear picture of that which is the real, true, actual nature within. This outer appearance is soon to pass away, but Jesus’ inner nature remains. The evange- lists take pains to make clear the connection with Jesus’ glorification through His imminent sufferings and death, for they place the transfiguration squarely in the context of the prediction of the passion, death, and resurrection.

At Exodus 23:14ff God tells the men of Israel that they shall come together for a solemn pilgrim feast three times a year: Pesach (Passover, the feast of unleavened bread when the people commemorated the liberation from the slavery of Egypt), Shavuot (Pentecost, the FIRST FRUITS HARVEST festival in the spring, fifty days after Passover), and Suqqoth (Booths, the LAST HARVEST festival in the fall, culminating in Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur). Some commentators ¹⁷ think that the proximity of this last festival suggested to Peter the idea of erecting comme- morative booths. These same commentators reinforce their thoughts by noting that light figures prominently in the festival celebration. Another commentator notes that during Suqqoth in Jesus’ time, the Women’s Court of the Jerusalem Temple was ablaze with large torches at night. ¹⁸

Having given it some thought, the idea makes sense from two vantage points. Peter’s suggestion about building three booths is explicitly and expressly rejected by the Father (1) because Jesus is the True Light whose true nature as The Light is dimly suggested in the sensible visual symbol of the dazzling brightness of the transfiguration event, thus supplanting and repla- cing the lighted torches in the Temple; and (2) because although the other two festi- vals (Pesach and Shavuot) are about to be replaced (by the Easter Triduum and Pentecost), the third, the LAST HARVEST symbolized by Suqqoth, is to come about at some undisclosed future time. Come, it shall - the Father seems to be telling Peter and the other disciples - but not now; this is not yet the time to celebrate the LAST HARVEST festival of Suqqoth.

Literarily, the transfiguration and the resurrection form what is called an inclusio, within which are to be found the events leading to our redemption: the journey to Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Passion, the Crucifixion and the Burial.

The transfiguration is situated at the decisive moment when Jesus, having been recognized and proclaimed Messiah by St. Peter, reveals to His disciples how He is going to fulfill His work: His glorification is in His heart-breaking and gut-wrenching death. This is counterintuitive. Every com- mentator listed in the biblio- graphy makes His glorification out to be the resurrection. But transfiguration and re- surrection form an inclusio. They serve to make crystal clear what lies between them. What lies between them is precisely that Jesus in the salvation events, His Passion and Death, is the same Person He Is in the Transfiguration and Resurrection.

Hence, the lack of glory we see on the Cross subsists solely in our lack of vision.

And so, little wonder that some see no glory whatever in the ordinary appearance of a morsel of bread, itself Glory Himself.

Even smaller wonder that others see no glory upon the face of the least of Jesus’ brothers: the homeless person at the door seeking to keep body and soul together just one more day by begging from us the gift of food that God meant us all to share as our common heritage upon the land; ¹⁹ the elderly sick and infirm, abandoned by their families to the hospital wards and “nursing” homes where we confine them so we don’t have to look at them or speak with them; the derelict in the county jail, awaiting a hearing on society’s charge of “public intoxication”, safely out of sight of the same society that through its coldness and lovelessness damned his mind and spirit to unlovely loneliness years before the police with rough treatment hauled him in to get him out of the way of the decent and beautiful people — who have created a place in their own image and likeness, leaving the heart of the city utterly heartless.

God comes to dwell with His own, as those who prophesied the Messianic times foretold.

Yet, it is also wholly true to say that it is human nature itself that is transfigured. There is no division of divine Christ and human Jesus. Jesus Christ shows forth the transfiguration of the creaturely nature He first formed in His own image and likeness. ²⁰ He proclaims that from this moment forward, human nature obtains a renewed dignity, sacredness, nobility, holiness, and prestige removed from that of angels only in kind. ²¹ What belongs to Jesus by nature has become ours through His election of us as His brothers.

St. Paul exhorts Christians to be “transfigured in the newness of mind”. ²² He speaks of Christians being transfigured into Jesus’ own likeness, from “doxeis eis doxan”, i. e., “glory to glory” as they reflect, as in a mirror, the doxa, or glory, of the Lord. ²³ The Greek word doxa St. Paul uses is identical to the Synoptics’ term for the glory in which Jesus, Moses, and Elijah appeared. St. Paul is saying that we, too, are transfigured.

That is the reason Luke adds that Moses and Elijah shine in glory, not just Jesus. It is also the reason all three Synoptics emphasize the special importance of what happened to Jesus’ vesture. Clothing represents human nature in both the Old and the New Testament. The “He Who is to come” of Genesis 49:10 shall also “wash His garments in wine and His vesture in the blood of the grape” in Genesis 49:11. Human nature, passed through the crucible of Passiontide, is washed clean by this saving bath in the Precious Blood. “He Who is to come” utters the prayer in behalf of all His brothers when He pleads, “Eternal Father, I offer Thee My most precious Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in atonement for the sins of the whole world.” ²⁴

And we have much for which to make atonement.

August 6 is the date that the Catholic Church has chosen to recall and renew the disciples’ ecstatic experience of Jesus’ transfiguration. ²⁵ Curiously, it is not recorded in John’s Gospel, even though we are told John was there. Curious, but not surprising. How would an eyewitness ever be able to reduce to mere written words an experience that was at once so intimate and ineffable?

Our liturgical timing ²⁶ is especially appropriate because the date of August 6 also commemorates another mind-boggling incident, one that the world is sure to remember for the next two thousand years, just as the transfiguration of Jesus has been remembered for the last two thousand years.

August 6, 1945 - sixty-one short years ago - was the day on which the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on August 9, we bombed Nagasaki, a major Roman Catholic center in Japan. On August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Japan surrendered, thereby ending a war that began on another Marian feast day, the Immaculate Conception. December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, was December 8 across the International Date Line in Tokyo; similarly, the United States dates the surrender to August 14 - which was August 15 in Tokyo. The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption mark the beginning and the end, respectively, of the Blessed Virgin’s earthly life - the significance of all of which, in the light of Fátima, does most definitely not escape this writer.

This latter day event was not a transfiguration: it was a disfiguration. At least 75,000 people were killed outright or died later as a result of the injuries they received in the “blast heard ’round the world.” The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City on Good Friday in 1995, and the jihadist terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, tragic as they undeniably were, pale in comparison.

Above Hiroshima arose a strange, gigantic mushroom of white incandescent smoke, billowing upwards with terrible swiftness and forming a huge cloud. But out of that cloud no reassuring voice could be heard saying, “I am well pleased.”

No survivor exclaimed for joy, “It is good for us to be here.”

And when they dared look up from the ground, dazzled by the blinding flash, deaf from the roaring voice of the blast, they beheld, not the ordinary humanity of Jesus restored once again, but the ruined aftermath of a devastated, shattered humanity.

On August 6, as we revisit with joy the transfiguration of Jesus and remember with sorrow the disfiguration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we need to hear again The Voice that spoke from the cloud that overshadowed the summit of a high mountain somewhere in Roman Palestine: “This is My Son, My chosen One. Listen to Him.” If we are to prevent that cloud of love and life from ever becoming another mushroom shroud of destruction and death, we must “listen to Him.”

And what does He say?

To God and to His Christ, Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come, be all glory, praise, honor, and thanksgiving, now and forever. Amen!

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2.

(Barclay 1) William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, The Westminster Press (Philadelphia, 1975).

3.

(Barclay 2) William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, The Westminster Press (Philadelphia, 1977).

4.

(Barclay 3) William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, The Westminster Press (Philadelphia, 1972).

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6.

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7.

(Brown 3) Raymond E. Brown, S. S., Peter in the New Testament, Paulist Press (New York, 1973).

8.

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9.

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10.

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11.

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12.

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13.

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14.

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15.

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16.

(LH) International Commission on English in the Liturgy, The Liturgy of the Hours, Catholic Book Publishing Company (New York, 1975).

17.

Xavier Léon-Dufour, Editor, The Dictionary of Biblical Theology, The Seabury Press (New York, 1973).

18.

(Greek) Reverend Alfred Marshall, D. Litt., editor, The RSV Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Nestle Text, Zondervan Publishing House (Grand Rapids, 1958).

19.

I. Howard Marshall, Editor, The New International Greek Testament Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (Grand Rapids, 1978).

20.

(Parsons) QuickVerse PC, Hebrew-Greek-English (Revised Standard Version), software © 1988 Parsons Technology.

21.

A. Van Den Born, translated by Louis F. Hartman, C. Ss. R., Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, McGraw-Hill Book Company (New York, 1963).

22.

Philip Van Linden, C. M., The Gospel of Luke and Acts, Michael Glazier, Inc. (Wilmington, 1986).