Taken from Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year.
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The subject
offered to our consideration, on this second Sunday, is one of utmost
importance for the holy season. The Church applies to us the lesson which our
Saviour gave to three of His apostles. Let us endeavor to be more attentive to
it than they were.
Jesus was
about to pass from Galilee into Judea, that He might go up to Jerusalem and be
present at the feast of the Pasch. It was that last Pasch, which was to begin
with the immolation of the figurative lamb, and end with the sacrifice of the
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. Jesus would have His
disciples know Him. His works had borne testimony to Him, even before those who
were, in a manner, strangers to Him; but as for His disciples, had they not
every reason to be faithful to Him, even to death? Had they not listened to His
words, which had such power with them that they forced conviction? Had they not
experienced His love, which it was impossible to resist? And had they not seen
how patiently He had borne with their strange and untoward ways? Yes, they must
have known Him. They had heard one of their company, Peter, declare that He was
the Christ, the Son of the living God. Notwithstanding this, the trial to which
their faith was soon to be put was of such a terrible kind, that Jesus would
mercifully arm them against temptation by an extraordinary grace.
The cross was
to be a scandal and a stumbling-block to the Synagogue, and alas! to more than
it. Jesus said to His apostles at the last Supper: “All of you shall be
scandalized in Me this night.” Carnal-minded as they then were, what would they
think when they should see Him seized by armed men, handcuffed, hurried from
one tribunal to another, and doing nothing to defend Himself! And when they
found that the high priests and Pharisees, who had hitherto been so often
foiled by the wisdom and miracles of Jesus, and now succeeded in their
conspiracy against Him, what a shock to their confidence! But there was to be
something more trying still: the people, who, but a few days before, greeted
Him so enthusiastically with their Hosannas, would demand His execution; and He
would have to die, between two thieves, on the cross, amidst the insults of His
triumphant enemies.
Is it not to
be feared that these disciples, when they witness His humiliations and
sufferings, will lose their courage? They have lived in His company for three
years; but when they see that the things He foretold would happen to Him are
really fulfilled, will the remembrance of all they have seen and heard keep
them loyal to Him? Or will they turn cowards and flee from Him? Jesus selects
three out of the number, who are especially dear to Him: Peter, who He has made
the rock, on which His Church is to be built, and to whom He has promised the
keys of the kingdom of heaven; James, the son of thunder, who is to be the
first martyr of the apostolic college; and John, James’s brother, and His own
beloved disciple. Jesus has resolved to take them aside, and show them a
glimpse of that glory, which, until the day fixed for its manifestation, He
conceals from the eyes of the mortals.
He therefore
leaves the rest of His disciples in the plain near Nazareth, and goes in
company with the three privileged ones towards a high hill called Thabor, which
is a continuation of Libanus, and which the psalmist tells us was to rejoice in
the name of the Lord. No sooner has He reached in the summit of the mountain,
than the three apostles observe a sudden change come over Him; His Face shines
as the sun, and His humble garments become white as snow. They observe two
venerable men approach and speak with Him upon what He is about to suffer in
Jerusalem. One is Moses, the lawgiver; the other is Elias, the prophet, who was
taken up from earth on a fiery chariot without having passed through the gates
of death. These two great representatives of the Jewish religion, the Law and
the Prophets, humbly adore Jesus of Nazareth. The three apostles are not only
dazzled by the brightness which comes from their divine Master; but they are
filled with such a rapture of delight, that they cannot bear the thought of
leaving the place. Peter proposes to remain there forever and build three
tabernacles, for Jesus, Moses, and Elias. And while they are admiring the
glorious sight, and gazing on the beauty of their Jesus’ human Nature, a bright
cloud overshadows them, and a voice is heard speaking to them: it is the voice
of the eternal Father, proclaiming the Divinity of Jesus, and saying: “This is
My beloved Son!”
This
transfiguration of the Son of Man, this manifestation of His glory, lasted but
a few moments: His mission was not on Thabor; it was humiliation and suffering
in Jerusalem. He therefore withdrew into Himself the brightness He had allowed
to transpire; and when He came to the three apostles, who, on hearing the voice
from the cloud, had fallen on their faces with fear, they could see no one save
only Jesus. The bright cloud was gone; Moses and Elias had disappeared. What a
favour they have had bestowed upon them! Will they remember what they have seen
and heard? They have had such a revelation of the Divinity of their Master! Is
it possible that, when the hour of trial comes, they will forget it, and doubt
His being God? And when they see Him suffer and die, will they be ashamed of
Him and deny Him? Alas! the Gospel has told us what happened to them.
A short time
after this, our Lord celebrated His last Supper with His disciples. When the
supper was over, He took them to another mount, Mount Olivet, which lies to the
east of Jerusalem. Leaving the rest at the entrance of the garden, He advances
with Peter, James and John, and then says to them: “My soul is sorrowful even
unto death: stay you here and watch with Me.” He then retires some little
distance from them, and prays to His eternal Father. The Heart of our Redeemer
is weighed down with anguish. When He returns to His three disciples, He is
enfeebled by the agony he has suffered, and His garments are saturated with
Blood. The apostles are aware that He is sad even unto death, and that the hour
is colose at hand when He is to be attacked: are they keeping watch? are they
ready to defend Him? No: they seem to have forgotten Him; they are fast asleep,
for their eyes are heavy. Yet a few moments, and all will have fled from Him;
and Peter, the bravest of them all, will be taking his oath that he never knew
the Man.
After the
Resurrection our three apostles made ample atonement for this cowardly and
sinful conduct, and acknowledged the mercy wherewith Jesus had sought to
fortify them against temptation, by showing them His glory on Thabor a few days
before His Passion. Let us not wait till we have betrayed Him: let us at once
acknowledge that He is our Lord and our God. We are soon to be keeping the
anniversary of His Sacrifice; like the apostle, we are to see Him humbled by
His enemies and bearing, in our stead, the chastisements of divine justice. We
must not allow our faith to be weakened, when we behold the fulfillment of
those prophecies of David and Isaias, that the Messias is to be treated as a
worm of the earth, and be covered with wounds, so as to become like a leper,
the most abject of men, and the Man of sorrows. We must remember the grand
things of Thabor, and the adorations paid Him by Moses and Elias, and the
bright cloud, and the voice of the eternal Father. The more we see Him humbled,
the more must we proclaim His glory and divinity; we must join our acclamations
with those of the angels and the four-and-twenty elders, whom St. John, one of
the witnesses of the Transfiguration, heard crying out with a loud voice: “The
Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power and divinity, and wisdom, and
strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction!”
The second
Sunday of Lent is called, from the first word of the Introit, Reminiscere;
and also Transfiguration-Sunday, on account of the Gospel which is read in the
Mass.
The Station at
Rome is the church of St. Mary in Dominica, on Monte Celio.
Tradition tells us that in this basilica was the diaconicum of
which St. Laurence had charge, and from which he distributed to the poor the
alms of the Church.
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