The Transfiguration of The Lord

The Transfiguration of The Lord

August 6, 2023

Year A

Commentary

Discover the deeper meaning and connections found in this week's readings, through these great commentaries written by our priests.

The Word

Explore this week's readings and hear what God is saying to us through His Word.

Liturgy notes

Find out more about how we can mark this special day in our liturgy.

Music

See our music recommendations for the liturgy.

Commentary

Mgr Canon Paul Townsend

The Transfiguration according to Matthew.

·      Any consideration of Matthew’s Transfiguration cannot ignore St. Peter’s profession of faith when he stated: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”.[i]  And this has to be juxtaposed with Jesus’s first prophecy of his Passion: “From then onwards Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day”. [ii]

·      Putting Jesus’s identity as the Son of the Living God with his repeated claim that he was on his way to death in Jerusalem did not sit comfortably with his disciples and perhaps, not with us. Peter’s failure to accept these two aspects of Jesus’s teaching, and I imagine, he spoke for his companion disciples, provides the context for the experience on the Mount of the Transfiguration.

·      It is at this point that the homilist has a choice to make. Some commentators would see Matthew’s Transfiguration as a glimpse of future resurrection glory.[iii]That would not be my choice because it fails to take account of the link between Jesus’s divine identity and the importance of the Cross. The vision of the Transfigured Jesus is a revelation of his human and divine reality. Jesus is seen as the one who will certainly suffer and die and, while fully human, is absolutely united to the life of God. The three disciples saw the glory of Jesus as the Son of the living God, and they had to hold in challenging tension that this same Jesus would be crucified. [iv] The Transfiguration cannot be a fast track to the Resurrection bypassing the Cross. This Gospel always connects, for me, with Thomas’s insistence that he could touch the Lord’s wounds on that second Easter Sunday. Only after he had been offered that opportunity, and there is no evidence that he took it, could he profess Jesus to be his Lord and God. What is crucially at stake is the central facet of the incarnation that everything the Cross represents about broken humanity is irrevocably connected to Jesus as the Son of the Living God forever. [v]

·      Jesus’s face shining like the sun, his clothes becoming as white as light, the presence of Moses and Elijah, the high mountain, all express the truth that Jesus, who is one of us, is equally at home in the life of the Trinity.

·      Then there is Peter’s suggestion of three tents. An admirable desire to keep the experience as an abiding reality. But Peter is interrupted and ‘cut off’ while he is still speaking by the voice which urged Peter and the others to listen to Jesus. To hold together the fact that Jesus is the Son of the living God who will suffer and die. Something we know he found difficult.

Application to our lives:

·      What difference does it make to us that Jesus is truly human and truly God?

·      Jesus was on his journey to death in Jerusalem supported by his Father’s love. How can Jesus’s experience of his Father’s love give us courage on our life’s journey?

·      The abiding theme in Matthew is that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. We do not need to remain on the ‘mountain’ to experience this. He is always with us.

·      Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ putting us on a journey of transfiguration from one degree of glory to another[vi]

·      The Transfiguration offers the homilist an eschatological dimension.

·      And our mission: to proclaim that our world and all men, women and children are on a journey towards a share in Jesus’s Transfiguration.


[i] Matthew 16.17

[ii]Matthew 16.21

[iii] Cf Daniel Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew in Sacra Pagina page 256

[iv]Cf Brendan Byrne, Lifting the Burden, Reading Matthew’s Gospel in the Church Today, pages 134-137

[v] Cf John 20.24-29

[vi] 2 Corinthians 3.18

Liturgy notes

Fr Anthony Fyk

Today’s Feast Day of the Transfiguration is about transformation. The Greek Orthodox Church titles this feast day as the ‘Festival of Metamorphosis.’ The Feast of Transfiguration is a foretaste of our ultimate transformation or metamorphosis. As the collect says the Transfiguration ‘wonderfully prefigured our full adoption to sonship’ and that we pray ‘we may merit to become coheirs with him.’ We too, as the Communion antiphon reminds us, ‘shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ For our own transfiguration to occur, the liturgy reminds us to ‘listen’ to the voice of the beloved. Attentively listening to the Word of God invites us to be transformed by it, so we may align our lives more closely to Christ. Likewise, through our participation in the Eucharist, we pray that we may be transformed into the likeness of Jesus. On this day, there is the beautiful tradition of blessing fruits. This practice signifies the final transfiguration or full flowering and fruitfulness of all things in Jesus Christ. Farmers would present their first fruits of their summer harvest to render thanks to God and to ask for God’s blessing. We could make use of the “Order for the Blessing of Food or Drink Connected with Devotion” found in the Book of Blessings. It might be an occasion to bless fruits and donate it to a local food bank. We have been showered with God’s blessings, why not be generous and share God’s blessing with others?

Music recommendations

Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (Laudate 644)

Lord enthroned in heavenly splendour (Laudate 769)

Be still for the presence of the Lord (Laudate 720)

O Worship the King (Laudate 683)

Shine Jesus Shine (Laudate 770)

Any questions?

Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.

Discover the Mass

Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.