Our Blessed Lord’s Passion and Death was looming on the
horizon and He had already seriously forewarned His disciples of it; but, as in
so many other matters, they were not yet able to truly understand and fully
appreciate His words. When the time
would come for Him to be taken away from them, Jesus realized that it would be
a traumatic and potentially faith-shattering experience for them, His great concern
was, therefore, that they should be so prepared that they might be able to endure
the grief of losing Him, and even draw spiritual profit from His own steadfast
confidence in His Father and love for them throughout His Passion. He could not spare them that trial, but He
would not have them agonize themselves and lose faith in Him because of it.
How then did Jesus go about this preparation of His
disciples? Considering His later Agony
in the Garden, there can be no doubt that He prayed most fervently to His
heavenly Father about it. Let us try to
learn something of the efficacy of that prayer.
The bond between her Son here on earth and His heavenly Father
was something that the Blessed Virgin Mary could not fully appreciate,
something that once caused her to exclaim: ‘Son, why have You done this to Your
father and I?’ On that occasion, instead
of returning home from Jerusalem with the caravan, Jesus -- after having become
‘officially’ a young man-before-God-and-for-God according to the Law -- had
remained there in the Temple at Jerusalem.
After three days they found Him
in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and
asking them questions (Luke 2:46).
Jesus was delighting in His heavenly Father, as He listened
to and questioned the doctors of the Law, and the teachers in the Temple,
praising Israel’s God.
Years later, as a fully-grown man, and ‘still at home’ as
it were, Jesus left Nazareth and went to search out John the Baptist actively doing God’s work. That Jesus did this at His Father’s inspiration
is confirmed by His Father’s voice sounding from heaven as He rose from the
waters of the Jordan after John’s baptism:
You are My beloved Son; with
You I am well pleased.
The Father alone knew when and how He wanted His Son to
begin His public ministry; Jesus had
first to hear His Father’s call and learn His will by patient, humble, obedience.
And now, on the mount Tabor’s top, the Father, in answer to
Jesus’ supplication, had plans to comfort and confirm His Son by calling Moses
and Elijah – representing the whole of God’s dispensation for the
sanctification of Israel through the Law and the Prophets – to emphasize for the
truly human Jesus that His coming Passion, Death, and Resurrection would be the
culmination and fulfilment of all Israel’s hopes, and of all God’s saving plans
for His Chosen People and, indeed, for the whole of mankind. Moreover, Jesus’ chosen Apostles on the Mount
with Him would see and experience this glorification of their Lord as the
fulfilment of Israel’s Law and Prophets, before hearing God Himself speak
Personally from the heavenly Cloud giving testimony to His beloved and lovingly
obedient Son. That those plans and intentions
of God were fulfilled is shown subsequently by Jesus own words and those also of
His disciples labouring in His nascent Church:
Beginning with Moses and all the
Prophets, (the risen Jesus) interpreted to them (two of His followers going to
Emmaus) what referred to Him in all the Scriptures.
(Peter said): “To Him (Jesus) all
the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will
receive remission of sins.” (Luke
24:27; Acts 10:43)
Jesus, most certainly, did not lead His three disciples up
the mountain to display Himself; He simply knew, as Man, that He needed to
pray; He also knew He had little time to prepare even those three specially chosen
disciples for what was soon to happen, which is why He took them with Him that
they might be near Him – as later in the Garden of Gethsemane -- when He was praying
for guidance and grace.
Jesus, following His Father’s lead, was aware that
His disciples were, at present, rejoicing in the presence of their Lord: He was
the Bridegroom and they were the Bridegroom’s most privileged friends. However, such present, earthly, joy, though holy, would
not be enough to sustain them through the trials that lay ahead of them. And that, People of God, is something we
should notice. Joy in the Lord based largely on emotional experiences
would, most certainly, not be enough for Jesus‘ disciples, nor can it suffice
for us: their joy, their love, had to be firmly established -- as must ours
also -- on Faith, shot-through and made incandescent, with Hope. Therefore:
Jesus took Peter, James, and
John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was
transfigured before them.
And, as the three disciples looked on:
A cloud came, casting a shadow
over them; and from the cloud came a voice, "This is My beloved Son. Listen
to Him!"
These words from heaven were given to root the disciples’
joy-in-the-Lord to the faith proclaimed by Moses and the Prophets, which had guided
and sustained Israel over many centuries.
For, throughout Israel’s wanderings in the desert, the presence of God’s
glory among them in the Tent of Meeting had been manifested by a cloud
descending upon the Tent. That same cloud
had also covered Mount Sinai when the Law was being given to Moses, and it was
there at Jesus’ baptism as you have heard; now it was covering the disciples on
the top of Tabor, the mountain of Transfiguration, and from it a voice was
telling them to listen to the words of Jesus.
The disciples could have no doubt about the voice speaking to them from
the cloud:
This is
My beloved Son. Listen to Him! (Mark
9:7)
It was indeed the voice of the God of Israel, the Father of
Jesus their Lord and Master, they were sharing a vision of heavenly glory and
they wanted to remain there, basking, as it were, in the glory of Jesus:
Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi,
it is good that we are here! Let us make
three tents: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
That was not to be.
For the present they had already been given what was necessary: a vision
of faith in the heavenly glory of Jesus, and a hope that would inspire and
sustain them in an insatiable longing to share with Him in His glory. Now, to finally galvanize them to put on this
new armour of salvation and prepare themselves for the great trauma that lay ahead
they were given a command: “Listen to Him.”
Long ago, as the disciples knew full well, Moses had spoken
of a prophet like himself whom the Lord God would give to His people (Deuteronomy
18:15):
A prophet like me will the LORD,
your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall
listen.
Those very words “Listen to Him” were now ringing in their
ears!
The disciples were ready indeed to descend from the top of
the mountain; for now their faith -- rooted in that faith which had sustained
and guided their fathers for over two millennia -- had been transfigured
into Christian faith, and they had been strengthened with hope which no earthly
trials could ever take away from them: for now they had a vision of Jesus’
heavenly glory, though hidden as yet from earthly eyes; now, they had an
eschatological hope to look forward to; now, they had a divine revelation and
commission to hold on to and proclaim to the world. From now on they would be
guided and sustained in all their difficulties by a sure and undoubting
confidence in the goodness of God, unflinching faith and trust in Jesus’ Person
and commands, and unshakable hope in the power of His guiding, ever-present,
Spirit of Love and Truth.
People of God, see and learn how to protect yourselves
against the snares of the devil rampant in the world of today: delight in the
heavenly Jesus more and more. We are not
to be mere moralists, we are called to be lovers and proclaimers of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour who trust
in the traditional teaching of His Church and never give up hoping that the
goodness of God will lead us -- if we persevere faithfully along the way of the
Cross -- to share in the eternal glory of Jesus before the Father.
Trust the faith. Trust
God’s words as did Abraham our father in faith, who, as you heard, was tested
by God saying to him:
Take now your son Isaac, your
only one whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust
on a height that I will point out to you.
How fearsome and dread did those words sound at first! How wonderfully, how beautifully, did they
echo when the Lord God gave the boy back to his father, resolving to become
Himself the Only One Who would offer His only-begotten Son for mankind’s
salvation. How wonderful are the blessings won for us by
Abraham’s obedience and trust, he was and is most truly our Father in Faith!
Trust – and defend -- the Catholic Faith, and delight
freely and fully, and ever more wholeheartedly, in Jesus our Brother and
Saviour; for, as St. Paul explains (Rom. 8:38s.):
Neither death nor life, nor
angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Again I repeat: trust the faith, delight in
Jesus, and thank God for His unfailing goodness. In
that way you will be armed both to resist and to overcome all that the devil
and the world can try to do against you:
For the joy of the LORD is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
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