Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
Speculum Iustitiae
Conference for Canon and Civil Lawyers
Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
La Crosse, Wisconsin
6 August 2024
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Gospel account of the Transfiguration takes us to the heart of the Paschal Mystery, the Mystery of Faith we celebrate in every Eucharistic Sacrifice. Christ was bringing to conclusion His public ministry marked by so many signs of His vocation and mission as God the Son Incarnate: the salvation of man from sin and everlasting death, and the adoption of man into the immeasurable and unceasing life of divine grace. Christ was about to make His way to Jerusalem to consummate the mission through His most cruel Passion and Death.
The Transfiguration came at the end of the six days of our Lord’s instruction on the Way of the Cross, the way in which the glory of God was to be made manifest in our human flesh. The Apostles Peter, James and John were privileged to witness the wondrous transfiguration of the Body of Christ in preparation for His coming Passion and Death. The memory of the Transfiguration would open the eyes and hearts of the Apostles, when they saw our Risen Lord in His glorious body. The Transfiguration was given to them not as some personal privilege but to prepare them to be the authoritative witnesses, the Apostolic teachers, of what it means to confess faith in the Divine Sonship of Christ.
So powerful was the experience of the Transfiguration that Peter, James and John, in fact, did not want to depart from Mount Tabor. What they had not yet understood, however, was the necessary way to the glory of the Transfiguration, to the fulfillment of all that is contained in the Law and Prophets: the Way of the Cross.
We know, in fact, how the same Peter, James and John failed to keep vigil with the Lord during the Agony in the Garden. We know how Peter denied that he even knew the Lord during the time of his trial and condemnation to death. Of all the Apostles, John alone stood at the foot of the Cross with Virgin Mother Mary. Yet the gift of the Transfiguration was not without its effect. Yes, the Apostles failed the Lord in the moment of His Passion and Death, but, recognizing their sin, they threw themselves upon His mercy and, when they witnessed His victory over sin, His victory of eternal life, they gave themselves totally to Him. Witnesses to the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, the Apostles understood the eternal meaning of the heavenly words, the words of the Father, which they had heard on Mount Tabor: “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him.”[1]
In the Second Letter of Peter, we read Peter’s words as he was approaching death, the words of his final testament, in which he makes direct reference to the experience of the Transfiguration. He declares to the faithful:
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased,” we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.[2]
Clearly, Saint Peter’s thinking had been totally reformed from the time he dared to rebuke our Lord about His teaching on the cross.[3]
He no longer is thinking like a man but has given his mind in obedience to the wisdom of God. Through the experience of the Transfiguration and of meeting the Risen Lord, Peter finally understood the true nature of the glory of the only-begotten Son of God.
The transformation of the thinking of Saint Peter must, therefore, be the mark of the daily transformation of our minds, especially as they are so easily and strongly influenced by a totally secularized culture. Like Saint Peter, we can be tempted to remake the glory of the Lord into figures which our culture can easily accept, and, therefore, which make us acceptable to the world, “politically correct,” to use a popular term. When we are so tempted, we should return mystically, in prayer, to the holy mountain of the Transfiguration. In the Transfiguration of Christ, we glimpse the reality of Peter’s confession of faith in the divine sonship of Jesus: the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets in the total and selfless outpouring of Christ’s life for our salvation. Regarding the Mystery of the Transfiguration, Blessed Ildefonso Schuster writes:
Of what mystery does the Church here speak? Of the mystery of our adoption as sons of God, an adoption of which the Eucharist is a pledge: vere panis filiorum – causing us to live the life of the divine Son and of his Spirit.[4]
On Mount Tabor, we understand more fully the exhortation of Saint Peter to his fellow presbyters, his fellow witnesses of “the sufferings of Christ,” and, thereby sharers “in the glory to be revealed.”[5]
As ministers of justice in the Church and in civil society, we are called and given the grace to exercise that minimum and yet indispensable measure of divine love which is justice. We offer our humble service with the enthusiasm and energy of one who has looked upon the Face of Christ and has offered his all to Christ for His ministry of justice which is the beginning of pastoral charity. For us, there can be no view to profit for self, material or otherwise, in our service but only the view to fidelity to Christ, under the care and guidance of His Virgin Mother, the Mirror of Justice. We act with humility before our shortcomings but with confidence before Christ’s glory shining forth in the Church.
We experience most fully and perfectly the response of God our Father to our obedient love in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. In the Holy Eucharist we now celebrate, God the Father hands over His only Son, making sacramentally present His Sacrifice on Calvary, for our eternal salvation. Our participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice expresses, in the fullest manner possible on earth, our obedient love. We lift up our hearts to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, His Eucharistic Heart. In the Heart of Jesus we receive in abundance the grace of sharing in the eternal glory of our transfigured Lord by sharing in the mystery of His suffering and dying.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Mk 9, 7.
[2] 2 Pet 1, 16-18.
[3] Cf. Mt 16, 21-23.
[4] “Di quali misteri parla qui la Chiesa? Del mistero dell’adozione nostra a Figliuoli di Dio, adozione di cui é appunto pegno l’Eucaristia: « vere panis filiorum », il quale ci fa rivivere del divin Figlio e dello Spirito suo.” A. I. Schuster, Liber Sacramentorum. Note storiche e liturgiche sul Messale Romano, vol. VIII, 2a ed. (Torino-Roma: Casa Editrice Marietti, 1932), p. 149. English translation: Ildefonso Schuster, The Sacramentary (Liber Sacramentorum): Historical & Liturgical Notes on the Roman Missal, Vol. IV (Parts 7 and 8), tr. Arthur Levelis-Marke (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1929), p. 421.
[5] 1 Pet 5, 1.