On 6 August the Church celebrated with great joy the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. It commemorated the episode in which Jesus went up the Mountain, probably Mount Tabor, with Peter, James and John and there the latter saw him radiant with glory and in the company of Moses and Elijah (Mt 17, 1-9; Mk 9, 2-9; Lk 9, 26-38; 2 Pt 1, 16-19).
The Transfiguration is a major feast in the Eastern Churches but not so much within the Western Tradition of Christianity. It is the feast of light and illumination. Thomas Merton in the book Merton and Hesychasm says: “The whole tradition of iconography represents a traditional experience formulated in a theology of light, the icon being a kind of sacramental medium for the illumination and awareness of the glory of Christ within us....What one 'sees' in prayer before an icon is not an external representation of a historical person, but an interior presence in light, which is the glory of the transfigured Christ, the experience of which is transmitted in faith from generation to generation by those who have 'seen', from the apostles on down... So when I say that my Christ is the Christ of the icons, I mean that he is reached not through any scientific study but through direct faith and the mediation of the liturgy, art, worship, prayer, theology of light, etc., that is all bound up with the Russian and Greek Tradition.”
Christ's majesty and power are still talking to us whenever we approach with faith and an open heart the icon of the Transfiguration. Thus explains Rowan Williams in his book Dwelling of the Light: "This is an icon of quite violent force, explosive quality; it shows an extreme experience. We may find it difficult to relate to at first for that reason: we may be struck and impressed by it, yet feel also that nothing in our own experience corresponds to this. We weren't there; we haven't seen the skies opening, the light suffusing the lonely figure on the rock, the weight of divine presence forcing us back, bowing us down. But the point of this, as of any icon, is not either to depict or to produce some kind of special experience in that sense: it is to open our eyes to what is true about Jesus and the saints. And what is true about Jesus is - if we really encounter it in its fullness - shocking, devastating: that this human life is sustained from the depths of God without interruption and without obstacle, that it translates into human terms what and who God the Son eternally is. The shock comes from realizing this means that God's life is compatible with every bit of human life, including the inner terrors of Gethsemane (fear and doubt) and the outer terrors of Calvary (torment and death)... But the point of this image of the transfiguration is to reinforce how the truth about Christ interrupts and overthrows our assumptions about God and about humanity".
We, the viewers of the icon and the readers of the Gospel account, are called to enter into the disciples' experience and make it our own. Like them we witness how Jesus mysteriously and powerfully works in our daily lives. And the fruit of his loving dealings with us is always a change in our spirit, soul and body. This is so since the uncreated light and grace of Christ, coming from his transfigured face, body, and garments, still transfigures our very senses, allowing us to behold his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, 'full of grace and truth' (Jn 1, 14).
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann