Fr. Simon's Letter - August 6, 2023

This week we break from the ordinary cycle of the liturgical calendar. We celebrate on this Sunday the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ. Each year we celebrate this feast on August 6, and if this day happens to be a Sunday, it takes precedence over the cycle of the ordinary Sunday of the year.

The event of the transfiguration of Christ is a little break from the day-to-day ministry of Jesus around the sea of Galilee. Jesus takes three of his close friends and goes up a mountain. Mount Tabor marks the place that recalls this incident in the scriptures. It is a conical shaped mount south of the sea of Galilee. Jesus takes this little side trip with Peter, James and John. When the Bible tells us that someone is going “up a mountain,” it’s time to fasten your seat belt. Right away you know something completely out of the ordinary, something special and sacred is about to take place.
 
But then, out of nowhere, we are told that when Jesus reaches the top of the mountain with his friends, “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.” And we know now that we have left the humdrum ordinary and entered an experience that can only be described as transcendent. We have entered the realm of the holy.
 
Then a cloud comes over the disciples and a “voice” from the cloud says, “This is my beloved Son ... listen to him.” Notice that it is not “worship him.” It is not “adore him.” It is not even “praise him.” Instead, it is a much more intimate, caring command: “Listen to him.” Follow him and allow the experience to transform our hearts, to bring about a transplant of the Spirit. This heavenly voice isn’t just informing us that Jesus is God’s Son to give us information. The voice is encouraging us to understand and live out the message that we are all God’s children.
 
In the light of the summer blockbuster movie Oppenheimer, I cannot but think of the transfiguration of Christ and the events from 78 years ago that transformed our world. In the transfiguration, Jesus exploded with the spiritual power of nonviolence and unconditional love, bringing into the light of the world the fullness of love and peace for the whole human race. On this day in 1945, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima vaporized 140,000 people in a flash, and did it again three days later in Nagasaki. Dorothy Day called these events “the anti-transfiguration,” when we rejected Jesus’ nonviolence and created our own demonic light, the blast of the bomb, the dark cloud. Instead of bringing light and peace to the human race, we brought death and destruction.
 
On August 6 we remember a transfiguration and a transformation. Both came with clouds, blazing light and sound. One brought death in a scope never before seen. But the other revealed a life even greater. Let us listen to him so that we will be people of the Gospel of nonviolence; people of universal love and truth; people of compassion and forgiveness. Let us be people who make peace with ourselves and God, with our families and friends, and the whole world. Let us be people who have witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus, who listen to him and obey his commandment to love, and who go forth like him announcing the coming of God’s reign of peace and nonviolence, in a new world without war, poverty or nuclear weapons.


Blessings!!