|
|
 Today
we celebrate the occasion (recorded in M 17:1-8 = P 9:2-8 = L 9:28-36) on
which Christ, as He was beginning to teach His disciples that He must die
and rise again, revealed Himself in shining splendor to Peter, James, and
John. Moses and Elijah were present, and are taken to signify that the Law
and the Prophets testify that Jesus is the promised Messiah. God the Father
also proclaimed him as such, saying, "This is my Beloved Son. Listen to
him." For a moment the veil is drawn aside, and men still on earth are
permitted a glimpse of the heavenly reality, the glory of the Eternal Triune
God.
In the East, the Festival of the Transfiguration has been celebrated since
the late fourth century, and is one of the twelve great festivals of the
East Orthodox calendar. In the West it was observed after the ninth century
by some monastic orders, and in 1457 Pope Callistus III ordered its general
observance. At the time of the Reformation, it was still felt in some
countries to be a "recent innovation," and so was not immediately taken over
into most Reformation calendars, but is now found on most calendars that
have been revised in the twentieth century. A recent tendency in the West is
to commemorate the Transfiguration on the Sunday just before Lent, in
accordance with the pattern found in the Synoptics, where Jesus is
represented as beginning to speak of his forthcoming death just about the
time of the Transfiguration, so that it forms a fitting transition between
the Epiphany season, in which Christ makes himself known, and the Lenten
season, in which he prepares the disciples for what lies ahead. Whether
observing the Transfiguration then will affect the observation of it on 6
August remains to be seen.
|
|
