2nd Sunday of Lent 2024

In today’s Gospel, we see the striking miracle of the Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John are allowed to see Christ in a glimpse of His glory, radiant like the sun and speaking with the Patriarchs—saints of the Old Covenant. There are many aspects of this miracle that have been expounded upon by the Church over the millennia, but the one I would like to focus on today is the aspect of transformation. The past few weeks, we have discussed several transformations—the transformation of the Old Covenant to the New, the transformation of the heart by obeying Christ. This theme of transformation runs through the heart of the Gospel, and is seen intently in the weeks of Lent. Jesus rejected the temptation to turn stones into bread, quoting that man shall not live by bread alone, but by the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

At the Last Supper, He would transform bread alone into the Flesh of the Word to be the Life of the World. At the Transfiguration, we see the Word that was made Flesh allow His flesh to shine with the Divinity that it was elevated to in the Hypostatic Union. In the words of St. John Chrysostom, God became man so that man could become God. In the Transfiguration, we see the God-Man in the splendor of both His natures.

In the narrative of Christ, we see a prophecy and an archetype of His Church—His Body, as noted in the selected reflections from last week. Christ left the splendor of heaven to become man, putting on humble flesh and the likeness of sin, that He could then rise from that ancient death to the resplendent glory of resurrection. Similarly, man fell from paradise, leaving Eden by the choice of sin, and lay in wait of his Savior who would raise him back up on the last day of resurrection.

The Transfiguration is the promise of the splendor that awaits beyond the ascension—the hearth where the fallen silver petals of Eden are smelted into the Divine gold of the eternal throne.

O what bestirs the heart of simple man?

A longing that transcends the years which pass—

a spectre of a dream once lost in sin,

a shadow as glimps’d dimly through a glass.

The memory of Eden, silver dew

which runs from gilded leaves of paradise,

hath now forsaken earth it should renew

and turned to tears which mar that valley’s face.

O what despair! To lose the face of God—

to walk where angels tread and lose thy way!

O rend thy cloak, thou ashen man and bid

thy broken soul to bend itself and pray!

For only by the nailed and blood-stained door

Might spoiled Eden yield to gold splendor.