August 6th is the Christian feast of Our Lord Jesus’s Transfiguration on the Holy Mountain. (Luke 9: 28-36).
There, the three chosen disciples, Peter, James and John, were given a glimpse of the glory of God when Jesus was transfigured—when he became bathed in glorious light. It foreshadowed the Resurrection when God’s glory would be fully revealed in the Risen Christ but it also was a comment on the Crucifixion which would seem less than glorious and yet was part of the glory of God who transformed the world with love.
It is the capacity of God to transform (or transfigure) darkness that is the hope Christians and those who belong to other faiths, must always hold on to.
By a quirk of fate, this feast is also the day when America dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima 79 years ago. There is an irony that nuclear energy which is at the heart of the world and is part of the great earth energy that sustains life should have been used to destroy so much life. It also gave birth to the modern age where nothing seems to be safe anymore. Human innocence was finally laid to rest in Hiroshima. We now have the power not only to destroy each other but also the very planet itself. As we know only too well, this terrible responsibility is not necessarily safe in human hands. We are now capable of blowing this fragile earth to smithereens at the whim of a handful of despots whose exercise of power and terror threatens us all.
So in our present darkened world, we need to return to the Mountain of Transfiguration and the subsequent Hill of Calvary and discover another way—a better, more glorious way which is also the costliest way—that of love. We are being called afresh by God to be Companions of the Transfiguration.
Some years ago, one of the marks of a Companion was said to be this:
“To stand within the redemptive and re-creative energies of God; to stand with Christ at the place where Divine Love and evil meet; to stand alongside individuals in their need and in their pain; to put hands and heart to some work of help and healing within reach.”
Never more so is this needed than today. Never more do we need to pray and to identify ourselves with this Transforming work.
[Mr G, The Icon of the Transfigurtion was written by Sister Irène of the Community at Le Bec Heloine. Traditional methods were used. Between each stage, prayer and contemplation interspersed the work. It was a private commission.
A similar Icon on the same subject and with the same style is in the Chapel of the Transfiguration in the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Epping.]
Mr G's Ponderings 