Dan 7:9-10, 13-14
Ps 97:1-2, 5-6,99
2 Pt 1:16-19
Mt 17:1-9
The Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, draws us into a mystery that is well beyond our understanding. The Transfiguration represents the fulfillment of the prophecy we heard in the reading from Daniel that tried to describe something
that cannot be fully captured in words.
"The Son of Man received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him. His dominion is everlasting; his kingship shall not be destroyed." The reading prefigured this Feast on which we recall Jesus appearing transfigured in brilliant glory; speaking with Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets in the presence of three of His apostles.
Imagine the setting: Dazzling light flooding the scene as Moses, Elijah, and Jesus conversed. What were they saying? What did they sound like? Place yourself with the apostles on the mountain. The tension increases to the point of becoming unbearable. And then you hear God's voice: “This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased,"
The Father confirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Beloved Son of God, whom Peter confessed him to be in the previous chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. And then the Father gives you a mission through the command to the apostles: "Listen to him."
Like the apostles, you are stunned into silence and overcome with awe. Jesus the Nazorean and teacher, son of Mary and wonder worker, Jesus, the carpenter, healer, and the prophet who was given no honor in his native place, is fully revealed in his Divinity.
But today we commemorate another transfiguration. We recall another revelation.
It too was marked by a blinding light.
It too was overshadowed by a cloud.
It too brought caused prostration in fear and trembling.
It too was marked by stunned silence.
On August 6 the Church recalls that Jesus was revealed in his Divinity on a mountain.
On August 6 history recalls that the human race was revealed in its depravity at Hiroshima in 1945.
The world would never be the same. Hiroshima captured in one event the sum total of human sinfulness since the fall of Adam and Eve. The events of Hiroshima, and three days later, Nagasaki, compressed the cumulative horrors
of all the wars of the past centuries, into a single and singular event. This time God did not give mankind a mission from the cloud. There was a terrible silence.
There was a void.
Or was there?
The voice of God was obscured by the explosion. It was not silenced.
More than 2000 years since the ancient Book of Daniel came into being, 2000 years since Jesus' incarnation, birth, passion, death, resurrection and ascension,
and seventy-eight years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, God's mandate: “listen to Him” is as compelling and urgent as it was for the shaken apostles. Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated man's capability for destruction on an unimaginable scale, a scale that is unique to our present time and technology.
"This is my Son; listen to him.”
As we listen to Jesus, as we take His teaching to heart and allow that teaching to transform us, we move a bit closer to the eschatological glory of the transfigured Jesus. At the same time we move just a bit farther from the apocalyptic destruction of the nuclear bombs, we take a step away from the genocides
in Armenia, Rwanda and Burundi, we increase our distance ever so slightly
from the ongoing horror of the war in Ukraine, and other atrocities inflicted throughout the world.
If we allow Jesus’ teaching to transform us, we move further from the not-too-long-ago agonies of the Baltic States and the unmitigated horror of China's Gang of Four and the Cultural Revolution. If we heed God's mandate to listen to his beloved Son, we can begin mover closer to healing from the systematic attacks being waged in the U.S. today, the attacks on morality, vulnerable human life at both ends of the spectrum, and most recently, on confused pre-pubertal children.
"The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory."
"The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth."
"This is my beloved Son, listen to Him."
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I've always loved the Feast of the Transfiguration. It has become even more meaningful since I began doing some work at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration, the only Carthusian house in North America. Over the years have taken multiple photos. Three are below.
A very large canvas of The Transfiguration at the Charterhouse. 
The Caarthusian Seal on the plate glass of the small museum at the summit of Mt. Equinox. The clouds were being reflected from the sky on the kind of perfect summer day that makes life wonderful. 
Was asked to do some shooting during Mass on one occasion.
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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