6 August 2024 - Feast of the Transfiguration
Dan 7:9-10.13-14 or 2 Pet 1:16-19; Mt 17:1-9
Homily
This gospel story, generally known as the "Transfiguration", corresponds to a literary style known as the Apocalyptic. It is a style found not only in the last Book of the New Testament, known precisely as the Apocalypse, but also in several passages of the Gospels. The liturgical lectionary for today's feastday quite rightly gives us as its first reading a vision from the Book of Daniel, which is precisely along these lines.
Let's take a look at this reading from the Book of Daniel, which will help us to reread the Gospel of the Transfiguration in the context of today's world. At the time of the prophet Daniel, a great culture, the Greek culture, was rapidly imposing itself on Israel as on the rest of the world known at the time. A new way of understanding existence and life was being imposed. After an initial period during which this new influence was received candidly and uncritically, there was a second period when this influence began to engender a profound crisis among those whose faith and religious beliefs could not be reconciled with this new cultural approach. Finally, in Israel, from the reign of King Antiochus Epiphanes onwards, there was a systematic effort to impose this culture, considered "superior" to others, by force of arms. This so-called "superior culture" became increasingly intolerant and violent towards weaker populations, oppressing and massacring them (an ancient version of the "clash of civilisations").
It was then that the Book of Daniel was written. It calls for resistance based on the past history of the People of God. Then, in the second part, it adopts the literary genre of the Apocalypse to express what ordinary, conventional language cannot: the absurdity of the use of violence and force. In this figurative language, the colour white symbolises the divine presence and its absolute holiness; the thrones symbolise the ability to govern history; and the " son of man " prefigures the human being who will be able to make God's will effective for humanity. The Gospels will often use this image to present the figure of Jesus as a completely new human being, capable of re-establishing dialogue between God and His people.
In the Gospels, the disciples, like the rest of the people, insist on seeing in Jesus a triumphant and invincible Messiah who will re-establish the political kingdom of David. The story of the Transfiguration, far from being a glorious manifestation of Jesus' divinity, is on the contrary a revelation of his character as a humble suffering servant. Jesus had just announced his passion and death, and Peter in particular had reacted very strongly to the prospect. Now, what is Jesus talking about with Moses and Elijah, in this vision that the Apostles have? He is talking about his death in Jerusalem. Jesus is revealed as the "beloved son" of the eternal Father and, at the same time, the human being who accepts failure and death, and whose greatness lies in accepting his weakness and vulnerability.
The mystery of the Transfiguration is a revelation not about God, but about humanity - the humanity assumed by the Son of God in His incarnation. Peter, who once again "does not know what he is saying" (a weakness that makes him great), would like to freeze the story of Jesus in the manifestation of glory on the mountain. No, we have to go back down to Jerusalem where what Jesus announced will take place.
Since 1945, we cannot celebrate this liturgical feast of the Transfiguration without remembering that it was on August 6 of that year that the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, and that humanity was terribly disfigured. It was undoubtedly the event in modern history that gave the clearest and most tragic expression to mankind's irrational and stupid pretence of overcoming violence with violence. For as long as mankind has existed, humans have always tried to overcome violence with greater violence, and have never succeeded in doing anything other than generating even greater violence. Why haven't we understood this yet? If we had understood the message of today's Gospel, the tragedy that many countries at war are experiencing today would not be happening.
As we ask for the conversion of each of our hearts, let us also pray during this Eucharist for all the victims of these wars.
Armand Veilleux