The “Feast of the Transfiguration” goes back to the Fifth Century in the East. In the Middle Ages, it extended itself through the whole Universal Church, especially under Pope Calisto III

Peter, James and John were present when Jesus transfigured Himself in front of them. His Body remained luminous and His clothes resplendent. This is, Jesus, who manifested to the disciples that He is really the Son of God sent by the Father.

Jesus in the fulfillment of all the promises of God. He is the “God with us”, the manifestation of the tenderness and of the mercy of the Father among men. His passion and death will not end, but all will recover the sense when the Father resurrects Him and He sits Himself a His right, in Glory. All this is said from a plastic manner: light,  brightness, gloria, cloud… that indicate the presence of God.

Jesus reveals to us A God that surprises. He speaks of Glory. Still, he shows us that the road necessary through him is the road of the cross, of passion and death, of giving all His life for the forgiveness of sins.

Already the prophet Daniel was surprised to see someone similar to the “Son of Man” entering in His Gloria and receiving Diving Kingship-with eternal power.

The three Apostles on Tabor remained surprised, upon seeing Jesus so divinely transfigured, being precisely concerned to pray, as would any man, with what he was going to suffer in Jerusalem.

In Today’s liturgy, the evangelist affirm that Jesus brought Peter, James and John to the high mountain and transfigured Himself before them, becoming resplendent of such brightness that “No cleaner of the Earth could bleach clothes like this.” It is in this mystery of light that the Liturgy invites us to fix our gaze.

In the transfigured face of Jesus shined a ray of divine light that He kept deep inside Himself. This same light shined in the face of Christ on the day of the Resurrection. In this sense, the Transfiguration manifested him as an anticipation of how we will appear when all consumes itself in all. So we will celebrate the pascal mystery!

The Transfiguration invites us to open the eyes of our heart for the mystery of the light of God, present in all the history of salvation. Already at the beginning of Creation, The Almighty said: “Let there be light! (Gen 1:3) and he saw the separation between light and darkness.

With other creatures, the light is a sign that reveals something of God. It is as the reflection of His glory, that accompanies His manifestations. When God appears “His splendor is as light, from His hands come rays. (Hab 3:4ff). As the Psalms affirm, the light is the mantle with which God reveals Himself (cf Sl 104:2) In the Book of Wisdom, the symbolism of light is utilized by discovering the very essence of God, Wisdom effuses from the Glory of God, it is “a reflection of eternal light”, superior to all the created light (cf Wisdom 7:26, 29s)

In the New Testament, it is Christ that constitutes the full manifestation of the light of God. His resurrection abolishes forever the power of the darkness of evil.

We Christ resurrected truth and love triumph over the lie and sin. In Him, the light of God illuminates definitively the live of men and the precursor of History. “I am the light of the world”-he affirms in the Gospel-he that follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12) Mark in the gospel of yesterday, using the symbolic elements of the Old Testament, makes a catechism over Jesus the Beloved Son of God, that is going to concretize His project of salvation in favor of men through the gift of life.

For you that many times is discouraged and scared, Jesus says that the road of the gift of life does not go to brokenness, but to full and definitive life. Following Christ is the guarantee of final victory.

Therefore, on the 2nd Sunday of Lent, the Word of God defines the road that the true disciple should follow to arrive to new life. And this is but the way of listening attentively to God and to His designs, the road of total and radical obedience to the plans of the Father.

Father Bantu Mendonça

Fr. Bantu Mendonça katchipwi Sayla is a priest for the Diocese of Tubarão, Angola

translated from Portuguese