Transfiguration: Epiphanic Light
August 6:
The Transfiguration of the Lord
The Feast in 4 Dimensions of The Eighth Day
Only in Luke's Gospel
do we encounter Tabor as an epiphany of the 8th Day,
and only here in the entire New Testament is Jerusalem's Golgotha
specifically named as that Epiphanic Reality
which the events of "The 2nd Book of Moses" was only its type.
Lk 9.27-31
“But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God." Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodos, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
1— as spiritual ascent, trekking up the holy mountain – as a typos of whole-hearted discipleship
2— as Liturgical Epektasis and Mysterion:
- communio in sacris, communio sanctorum
see also Fr.B.Varghese on the West Syriac Liturgy -- Notes from the Gospels, Didache, Ephrem ... to Bouyer, deLubac, Schmemann, and Zizioulas
3— as Mystagogy, a singular gift embodied in Christ-like love:
- It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. St. Paul, Gal. 2.20
- Dilige et quod vis fac.St. Augustine, Sermo 1 Jn 7, 8
4— as Worship and Prayer, in both worlds – now and unto the Ages of Ages:
- Gloria Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 4, 20, 7
- “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.”
- Holy Holy Holy -- what the Seraphim handed on to us in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4
The Transfiguration of the Lord
brings us into the Mystery of the Lord...
Through the liturgy's praise of the Divine Name,
the faithful mystically enter "The Great Elevation" of the Holy Gifts for the Holy Ones...
We are participating in the Mystery of the Revelation which Peter, James, and John shared on Mt. Tabor...
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each give the transfiguration miracle a prominent role.
John the Beloved, 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 the Gospel of John the Evangelist is, in a sense, a vision of one who has never ceased witnessing that Light of Tabor in Spirit and truth.
Icon of St. John of Patmos
written by the hand of Heather Durka
- Read More on Taboric Light ~ Johannine Transfiguration on the Lucan Road to Emmaus.
and therein reference to Ss. Gregory Nazianzus and Athanasius of Alexandria:
- The biblical image of the deity as luminous is central to the patristic theological and spiritual vision.
- How thoroughly the Johannine celebration of the image of light has penetrated the Eastern spiritual vision is clearly seen in Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian desert spirituality, the writings of seminal theologians like the Cappadocians, the hesychast tradition of Mount Athos, Russian spirituality, as well as in the liturgical texts and the practice of iconography. “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” is the message John proclaims, which, he testifies, he and his fellow apostles heard from Jesus Christ himself (1 John 1:5).
- The incarnate image of that light was Christ himself. “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9). This glorious light has become the life of the world and so the whole creation now is animated by it.
- The highest aspiration in the Eastern view thus consists not only in walking in this light, which constitutes our ethical being, but in becoming light itself, participating fully in the divine glory....As one of the prayers of the Eastern church says: “O God, you started the work of creation with light in order that the whole creation may become light.”
- The patristic vision ... of beauty is not a metaphorical embellishment to theology, but it is theology at its best. This aesthetic vision is decisive for God-language, and it flows into an ensemble of colours, sounds, smell, taste, gestures and rites. The hope is that the thick, heavy matter that now weighs us down in various forms shall become incandescent by participation in the divine light.
- As Gregory of Nazianzus ...says of the transfiguration of Christ, “it initiates us into the mystery of the future”. The light of Tabor, the mount of transfiguration, is for Gregory and other teachers of the Church the symbol par excellence of the beauty and goodness of created nature; and light signifies its final destiny as well.
- This aesthetic experience is unquestionably true to the essential meaning of the Incarnation, which signifies the participation of created nature in the experience of divinization, as formulated in the famous dictum of Athanasius: “God became a human being that human beings may become divine”. The conviction that all matter, including inorganic matter, carries the potential of transfiguration underscores the sacramental vision and spiritual practice of the Eastern Church.
And in that "mystagogy of the Future"
-- so much a benedictine "conversatio morum" --
let us recollect Fr. Schmemann's insight
on the epiphanic Mysterion of the Assembly:
More on Transfiguration in the "Sacrament of the Assembly"
Which brings us to the Originating Mystery per se:
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
Read More
The feast "shows us how we see" the Holy Mysteries of our salvation
in the sacraments, in the liturgy, in the icons,
and in our journey of conversion.
The Transfiguration Feast
has everything to do
with the Parousia,
with the Coming of the Kingdom
with the Victory of the Cross.
By the light of the Transfiguration Miracle
and with the eyes of faith we see, from Glory to Glory,
a "plethora in blessings" in the Divine Light of "The 8th Day."
Read More on Makarios the Great and Transfiguration
Our Lord preached to tens of thousands,
but took only three with Him to ascend the Holy Mount of Tabor.
And so those three, lifted into the Mysteries of Glory,
became vessels of light to illumine the Kingdom.
TODAY each of us partakes of that very same journey up the Mount
when we gather into "the chapel light"
of the very same Mysteries of the Kingdom,
singing
By Thy Light we see the Light, Jesus full of Light.
May your journey in Christ,
be radiant in the Light of Tabor.
Fr. Michael Durka +
Further Reflections --
Fr. Patrick Reardon on Scripture and Transfiguration:
Armenian Orthodox theologian Vigen Guroian and
Coptic Orthodox theologian Andrew Youssef:
On Morality in the Light of the Transfiguration
In a word, we embrace the Word through the life-long, all-encompassing and all-fulfilling "Fiat!" of Mary His Mother
Coptic Icon
of
the Dormition and Ascension
of the Theotokos
posted by Fr. Michael Durka @ Wednesday, August 05, 2009
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