Dear Parish Family,

 Anyone visiting the Holy Land will be guided to three mountain tops with their magnificent churches, namely the Mount of Beatitudes, Mount of Transfiguration and Mount Calvary. We could say that these mountain top experiences were very central to the life of Christ, his disciples and  now by faith they are at the epicenter of our Christ-experience. On the top of Mount Tabor, the place identified since the fourth century as the (unnamed) “high mountain” of the Transfiguration story of today’s Gospel, sits a wonderfully ironic piece of architecture. Mathew says Peter suggested it from within confusion (“Rabbi, … let us make three tents; one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”), and Italian Franciscans, in 1924, actually did, in stone. It is a gorgeous basilica with two side-chapels, one for St. Moses and one for St. Elijah. Though it is, with respect to the New Testament account, ironic (implementing what the text implies was a mistaken notion), the construction is nonetheless inevitable. What else would an architect do to memorialize this event?

We as believers must make an icon of this experience in our life too. What Jesus meant when he called himself “the Son of Man” is a topic of endless scholarly conjecture. No less an exegete than Raymond Brown thought it likely that Jesus used the title as a way of applying to himself the role of the “one like a son of man” portrayed in this Sunday's first reading from Daniel 7.  In the glory of the vision on Tabor, Jesus is seen as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. As the vision progresses, Moses and Elijah fade from view and a heavenly voice, first heard at the Tent of Meeting in the Exodus event and last heard at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, says, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” For the three Jewish witnesses, this vision could mean only one thing. Everything that they had listened for in the Law and the prophets—what God communicated to Israel—was now to be understood as fulfilled in the person and teaching of Jesus.

How are we to make concrete the import of this vision? It gives us a way of looking at both the past and the future. With respect to the past, the Transfiguration reminds us that we, have Jewish roots and DNA in faith matters and look to the Old Testament for the revelation of God’s plan. With respect to the present and the future, the Transfiguration reminds us that we acknowledge Jesus to be truly risen. And we, who share with the three disciples an imperfect knowledge of what “rising from the dead” really means, can look forward to sharing this glory of Jesus as complete human beings, spirit in glorified flesh. Though we do not build three tents or three chapels, we memorialize the meaning of the Transfiguration by letting that vision guide our lives. In the nitty gritty of daily living we can easily fall prey to forgetfulness of this vision to the detriment of losing the glorious goal of our lives.

Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O