The Feast of the Transfiguration

Aug 6, 2005

The Transfiguration of the Lord brings us into the Mystery of the Lord as He is in Himself:
"Glorious, uncreated, self-existing; eternal, adorable, consubstantial~"

These "Divine Names" are the praises we sing just after the "Theh've" for the Holy Qurbana's 3rd and consummate 3-fold Blessing. Through this praise of the Divine Name, the faithful mystically enter "the Great Elevation" of the Holy Gifts for the Holy Ones.

Liturgically we are sharing the Mystery of the Revelation which Peter, James, and John shared on Mt. Tabor.
Jesus revealed Himself to them in order to prepare them to experience His Passion from the perspective of Christ Himself. Of course, until they later receive the Spirit of Pentecost, this Divine perspective is within them only "in seed" and is, therefore, unrecognized as they first experience The Passion.

The evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke each give the transfiguration miracle a prominent role in their gospels. John, the only evangelist actually at the miracle on Tabor, alone of the four evangelists does not include this miracle in his gospel testament-- if all we see are words.

But John's Gospel is, in a sense, a vision of one who has never ceased witnessing that Light of Tabor in Spirit and truth.

The Gospel of John is filled with the very light and life of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor. We see in the opening lines of John that the Eternal Word comes into the world as light and life for us, grace upon grace, and that we have beheld His Glory ~

We too offer in our testament in worship, ever ancient and ever new, the Living Lord -– "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."



St. John of Patmos
written by the hand of Khouria Heather Durka

In his book, His Face Shone Like the Sun, Fr. Robert Wild reflects that Peter, James, and John together form a privileged group of 3 as a symbol of the life of Christian discipleship and faith.
We hear the word as members of a community body, and this hearing in membership makes us a people, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." (1Pt 2.9)
And the primary hearing of that Word, so constituting that chosen, royal, and holy identity, is a hearing through the Church's liturgy.

In this season of Pentecost,
we are especially recollected to the outpouring of the Spirit, the indwelling of the Spirit, and the Spirit's transforming power. The Spirit is the animating soul of the Church, the power of the sacraments and prayer, the "soul" of our own Christian souls.

The Spirit is our life-giving beauty, our abiding advocate, and our joyful wisdom in the Lord. The Spirit is upon us, and "Emmanuel, God is with us" in the Spirit.

The Spirit gives life to the Body of Christ, the Church.
Eucharistic liturgy makes the Church, and therein we experience the power and beauty of Christ Himself and all the love that He offers: it’s the Spirit that gives Life.

As the Sundays of Pentecost carry us forward, we soon encounter the liturgical year's culminating Great Festivals: (1) the Feast of the Transfiguration,(2) the Feast of the Dormition & Assumption of St. Mary the Mother of God, and ultimately (3) the Feast of the Holy Cross.

All these festival graces are poured into our hearts and lives in every Holy Eucharist, in every Sunday of the Resurrection, in every handing over our very selves to Christ the Lord.

As the early Church confessed, so do we:
"Eucharist makes the Church."
The Church is the sacrament of the very Body of Christ, the Lord of Glory "in whom we live, and move, and have our being."

Through the mission of the icons in the liturgy of the Church, the Transfiguration is especially manifest in our lives today
The Liturgy of the Church is, essentially, the communion of saints (communio sanctorum) in the Holy Gifts (communio in sacris).

The Holy Icons mystically and sacramentally share this "communion of love and light and life" through the Spirit's own communion in the saints.

Veneration given to the icon passes to the prototype, so any veneration to the icon is a greeting of the saints with a holy kiss, as St. Paul instructs the faithful. In venerating the icon we lay our prayers in the heart of the saints, their intercession, and their love. We offer our prayers within the Heavenly Liturgy of all the angels and saints. In effect, we embrace and share the communion of saints "on earth as it is in Heaven."

That is why the icon is called a Window into Heaven.
The icon unveils the joy of the Kingdom shining into our world. The icon reveals "The Transfiguration" of all those who have put on Christ, who clothe themselves in the brilliant radiance of the Lord of Glory. Thus "the theologian of Patmos" reveals to us the Gospel of the Alpha and the Omega.

Further study:
Paul Evdokimov, in his great work, The Icon: A Theology of Art and Beauty, speaks of Christ as the Divine Heart burning with love in the Wedding Feast of Holy Eucharist. This Divine Love is the soul of the Iconostasis, and at the heart of the Great Deisis. (p. 143 ff)
St. Andrei Rublev, who made known the light of Heaven through his humble and magnificent icon of the Holy Trinity, from 1409 (when he was commissioned to do the icon) until 1425 (when it was finished) would sit before the icons all day on feast days when he did not work. In the light of the icons he was elevated into the light of Heaven, and in that light he could see light, and "transmitted" -- or better, "translated" -- that same light into his icon of the Trinity.


Rublev's central angel: the communion of love

Writes Evdokimov: He was thus able to become the amazing singer of love. . . . The three angels of the icon invisibly give flight: 'that all may be one . . . so that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them.' (p. 243 ff)