The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate our spiritual lumination experiences when our vision or understanding was remarkably expanded.
Mountaintop Clarity
The reading from the Book of Genesis relates the command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
* [22:1–19] The divine demand that Abraham sacrifice to God the son of promise is the greatest of his trials; after the successful completion of the test, he has only to buy a burial site for Sarah and find a wife for Isaac. The story is widely recognized as a literary masterpiece, depicting in a few lines God as the absolute Lord, inscrutable yet ultimately gracious, and Abraham, acting in moral grandeur as the great ancestor of Israel. Abraham speaks simply, with none of the wordy evasions of chaps. 13 and 21. The style is laconic; motivations and thoughts are not explained, and the reader cannot but wonder at the scene. In vv. 15–18, the angel repeats the seventh and climactic promise. Moriah: the mountain is not given a precise geographical location here, though 2 Chr 3:1 identifies Moriah as the mountain of Jerusalem where Solomon built the Temple; Abraham is thus the first to worship there. The word “Moriah” is a play on the verb “to see” (Heb. ra’ah); the wordplay is continued in v. 8, “God will provide (lit., “see”)” and in v. 14, Yahweh-yireh, meaning “the Lord will see/provide.”1
Psalm 116 is a thanksgiving for recovery from illness.
* [116:15] Dear in the eyes of the LORD: the meaning is that the death of God’s faithful is grievous to God, not that God is pleased with the death, cf. Ps 72:14. In Wis 3:5–6, God accepts the death of the righteous as a sacrificial burnt offering.2
The reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans declares the power of God’s Love in Christ Jesus.
* [8:31–39] The all-conquering power of God’s love has overcome every obstacle to Christians’ salvation and every threat to separate them from God. That power manifested itself fully when God’s own Son was delivered up to death for their salvation. Through him Christians can overcome all their afflictions and trials.3
In the Gospel of Mark, three disciples witness the Transfiguration.
* [9:2–8] Mark and Mt 17:1 place the transfiguration of Jesus six days after the first prediction of his passion and death and his instruction to the disciples on the doctrine of the cross; Lk 9:28 has “about eight days.” Thus the transfiguration counterbalances the prediction of the passion by affording certain of the disciples insight into the divine glory that Jesus possessed. His glory will overcome his death and that of his disciples; cf. 2 Cor 3:18; 2 Pt 1:16–19. The heavenly voice (Mk 9:7) prepares the disciples to understand that in the divine plan Jesus must die ignominiously before his messianic glory is made manifest; cf. Lk 24:25–27. See further the note on Mt 17:1–8.4
Mary Lee Brock shares that her walks on the local trail help her feel God’s love through the beauty of nature.
It is more challenging to explore the patterns of disordered attachments that lead me away from God. I pray for the grace to help me become aware of what I am clinging to in my life that is getting in the way of my relationship with God. This awareness can lead me to a stance of indifference, of freedom. I pray to God to help me be willing to sacrifice my distractions. Help me to live a good life but not to cling to the security of that life at all cost. Help me to be generous with my love and attention to others and not to cling to fulfilling my own needs first. Help me to bring joy to others but not cling to a need to be the center of other’s attention. As we hear today in the letter to the Romans: If God is for us, who can be against?5
Don Schwager quotes “The transfiguration of Jesus,” by Jerome (347-420 AD).
"Do you wish to see the transfiguration of Jesus? Behold with me the Jesus of the Gospels. Let him be simply apprehended. There he is beheld both 'according to the flesh' and at the same time in his true divinity. He is beheld in the form of God according to our capacity for knowledge. This is how he was beheld by those who went up upon the lofty mountain to be apart with him. Meanwhile those who do not go up the mountain can still behold his works and hear his words, which are uplifting. It is before those who go up that Jesus is transfigured, and not to those below. When he is transfigured, his face shines as the sun, that he may be manifested to the children of light, who have put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light (Romans 13:12). They are no longer the children of darkness or night but have become the children of day. They walk honestly as in the day. Being manifested, he will shine to them not simply as the sun but as he is demonstrated to be, the sun of righteousness." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 12.37.10)6
Peter Edmonds SJ, a member of the Mount Street Jesuit community, traces the path through Mark’s Gospel that we will follow over the coming year.
Mark situates his narrative of the Transfiguration straight after Jesus’s warning to his disciples that he would suffer and die in Jerusalem. This vision of glory was to show his disciples that his destiny also included resurrection and future glory. Perhaps because of the Transfiguration, Mark felt no need to include resurrection appearances of Jesus in his gospel. The Transfiguration prefigures the resurrection and is a necessary supplement to the story of the Temptation. Christian life is a promise of glory as well as a warning about conflict.7
The Word Among Us Meditation on Romans 8:31-34, inspired by “He . . . handed him over for us all.” (Romans 8:32) comments that on the Mount of Transfiguration, God offered Jesus as a gift of glory: “This is my beloved Son,” he said yet again, adding an impassioned plea: “Listen to him” (Mark 9:7). Still, even Peter misunderstood the gift. He sought to capture Jesus’ glory as a static memorial rather than a living presence.
Jesus is here. Accept him. Let him change your heart. “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but you still offer yourself to me. Help me to embrace you so that my soul may be healed.”8
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the actions of Abraham that show his deep love for Isaac and deep trust in God. The passage from the Letter to the Romans is a hymn of enthusiasm. Friar Jude reminds us of Jesus' connection to the Songs of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares that every viewpoint is a view from a point. Unless we recognize and admit our own personal and cultural viewpoints, we will never know how to decentralize our own perspective. We will live with a high degree of illusion and blindness that brings much suffering into the world. This is what Simone Weil (1909–1943) meant in saying that the love of God is the source of all truth. Only an outer and positive reference point utterly grounds the mind and heart.
We all play our games, cultivating our prejudices and our unredeemed vision of the world. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and other scholastics said that all people choose as objective good something that merely appears good to them, foreseeing the postmodern critique by 700 years. No one willingly does evil. Each of us has put together a construct by which we explain why what we do is necessary and good. This is the specialty of the ego, the small or false self that wants to protect its agenda and project itself onto the public stage. [3] We need support in unmasking our false self and in distancing ourselves from our illusions. For this it is necessary to install a kind of “inner observer.” Some people talk about a “fair witness.” At first that sounds impossible, but with patience and practice, it can be done and even becomes quite natural.9
We pray to be open to the Spirit that guides us in and through experiences of spiritual enlightenment.
References
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