Father Jim Kowski, MM
Sunday, August 6, 2023
Daniel 7, 9-10, 13-14 | 2 Peter 1:16-19 | 2 Peter 1:16-19 Matthew 17:1-9
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, founder of the Madonna House Apostolic Institute in Ontario, Canada, was raised in the Russian Orthodox faith. Her parents taught her from a young age that God is present in everyone and everything. Once, when Catherine said she wanted to touch God, her mother held out her hand and said, “Touch me.” Understanding St. Augustine’s teachings, Catherine’s mother wrote, “God became man so that man may become God.”
Transfiguration is not just a sign of Christ’s divinity. It also reveals our own potential to grow and become divine.
Earlier, the author of Daniel wanted to encourage believers who were persecuted by King Antiochus Epiphanes. The purpose of the Transfiguration was to strengthen the faith of the disciples, which would be severely tested by Jesus’ passion and death.
Later, St. Paul sought to strengthen the Christian community in times of suffering or persecution: “For I consider that present sufferings are nothing compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8, 18)
In our opening prayer, at the Transfiguration of Jesus, His Father was asked to “(strengthen) our faith to confirm the testimony of your prophets and (show) the splendor of your beloved children”. Likewise, St. Peter, through the Transfiguration, sees a new awareness of our own impending ascension.
Despite daily trials and tribulations, St. Paul assured the Corinthians that through faith, “we have been changed… from glory to glory.” (2 Co 3, 18) Perhaps we have identified with Teilhard’s vision, recognizing that “We are not human beings with a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings with a human experience.”
The voice heard by the disciples proclaims, “This is my chosen son,” giving us a glimpse into our own future. St. John declares: “We are already children of God, but what we shall become has not yet been revealed; all we know is that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”( 1 John 3:2).
It’s refreshing to think about the innocence of a child. Indian Jesuit Sebastian Panadas wrote: “Children belong to the Kingdom of God not because they are more innocent than we are, but because they do not live in the brokenness of the past, nor in the In anticipation of the future. Children live in the present moment. They are fully committed to the present moment, to the here and now.”
“The Metamorphosis” offers us hope that we can relive this experience even as adults. As photographer Minor White puts it: “The innocence of the eye has a quality of its own. It means looking at the child’s perspective with freshness and awareness of wonder; Come full circle, see it from a child’s perspective again, with a freshness and a deeper sense of wonder.” As Jesus said, we must be like little children if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The voice heard by the disciples said: “This is my chosen Son; hear him.” Some said: “Silence is the first language of God; everything else is a bad translation. To hear this language, we Must learn to be quiet and rest in God” (Thomas Keating). The disciples remained silent on the matter until they reflected on the transfiguration of Jesus in light of his resurrection and ascension.
James warns, “Do the word, not just hear it” (James 1, 22). Sometimes, however, we confuse activity with doing God’s will.
Saint Josephine Bathita was born in 1869 into a loving and wealthy family in Sudan, Africa. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. After ten years of unspeakable suffering, Bathita was freed, converted to Catholicism, and eventually joined the Canossian nuns. After years of service, including helping in hospitals and giving missionary lectures during World War I, her arthritis, asthmatic bronchitis, and double pleurisy forced her to stop working and use a wheelchair. A visiting bishop asked Sister Josefina what she was doing hour after hour in a wheelchair all day. She replied, “What should I do? That’s exactly what you’re doing: God’s will.”
This Bible reflection was previously published the week of August 6, 2017.
To read other biblical reflections published by the Maryknoll Office of Global Concern, click here.
Maryknoll Father James Kofski served in Thailand and Burma before moving to the U.S.-Mexico border to serve El Patricio at San Patricio Church in Canitilo, Texas. The Diocese of Sox started the ministry.
Featured image: Madonna House Church, Ontario, Canada. (via Facebook/MadonnaHouse) Fr Maryknoll meditates on the power of the Transfiguration of Jesus in our contemplation and communication with God.