Friday, September 1, 2023

The Transfiguration

Judy Garland in Summer Stock, 1948

The Transfiguration

Our Blessed Lord was glorified by His Father and manifested at the beginning of His child-life, again at the beginning of His public life when He was baptized, and a third time at the beginning of the conflict which was to end in His Passion and Death. Each time a special humiliation was illumined by a corresponding glory. In the Transfiguration, Our Lord suspended for a moment the continual miracle which kept His glory concealed. Then He shone like the sun, His garments became brilliant as snow, He was elevated above the earth, and the Father declared Him to be His well-beloved Son. The mysteries of which Our Lord was the center or source were proclaimed, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Passion, immortality and glory. Around Jesus were the representatives of the past and the future, of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, Moses and Elias, and the three chief apostles. Such magnificence had never been seen on earth, nor will be till the last revelation of Christ as Judge. The Apostles were overwhelmed, they lost all sense of the world below, they knew not what they said for ecstasy. Thenceforth they had a new awe and veneration for their Lord. You have the light of the revelation of faith. This is enough to show you the divine splendour hidden under the lowly forms which Our Lord now assumes. When you enter His presence, forget the world and self, and lose your self in Him.

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