In his homily on Sunday, Father Jose Mesa pointed out that the Transfiguration of Jesus prepares us less for the Crucifixion than it does for the Resurrection.  In both Matthew and Mark we read that Jesus cautions Peter, James, and John, who were witnesses to this manifestation of Jesus’ glory, not to tell anyone about it “until the Son of Man is raised from the dead” (Matthew 17:9).

Father Jose went on to say that in many ways the Resurrection is harder to deal with than the Crucifixion.  I nodded.  Yes, I do believe that is true.  Everyone has some experience of suffering.  And if as yet we have had no experience of death, we eventually will.

But resurrection? The victory of life over death?  The definitive triumph of goodness?  A radiance that will fill, not only Jesus, but us as well? How do we deal with this?  How do we even begin to describe it?  In the remarkable 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, Saint Paul tries his best to tell us something of what the resurrection of the dead will be like, but ends up making it sound marvelously and totally incomprehensible.

When in the Presence of Mystery…

Faced with the dazzling glory of Jesus transfigured, Peter, who tends to rush in where angels fear to tread, says, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Mark 9:5).

Whereupon the disciples hear a voice from the cloud.

What do they hear?  Not “Nice idea, Peter,” or even “Let’s sit down and discuss what you are experiencing.” No, all three synoptic gospels record that the voice says something to the effect of “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased;  listen to him!”

Or to be blunt, “Be quiet and pay attention to Jesus!”

What is the proper response when in the presence of great mystery —   whether we happen to be Peter the first pope, Benedict the current pope, or an ordinary person such as I am (and probably such you are, too)?

Stop talking and listen! Pay attention!  The time will come to proclaim the good news (for the Mystery of God is always good news).  But not yet.  Now is the time for listening.

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The following is Peter’s account.  Notice that he conveniently leaves out the part that suggests he was talking too much.

…we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.

So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1:16-19

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
‘See, this is new’?
It has already been,
in the ages before us. (1:9-10)

But in truth, “there is nothing new under the sun” is a very unusual sentiment for the Bible. Some things do go round and round of course: the earth, for example, and with it the seasons. Human nature, too, seems not to change, generation after generation. But the typical biblical view of time and history is that we are going somewhere, not stuck in a never-ending circle. In Isaiah 43 we hear:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (18-19)

In this light we can think of the liturgical year in another way—as a spiral, or more properly a helix: turning, yes, but moving toward the fulfillment of all things.

So as we begin Advent, we notice that we are not quite in the same place as we were last year at the same time, just as each loop of the helix brings us to a spot which looks similar to the previous loop, but is not in reality the same.

Sometimes, though, it seems easier to go round and round, all the while complaining that there is nothing new under the sun. Because if we accept that something new is beginning, we must also accept that something old is ending. In other words, we must accept the death of something familiar to us. If we hear Jesus saying, “I am coming soon,” or if we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” then we must accept that the life we know, the only life we know, as imperfect as it may be, must come to an end in one way or another. And whether we know it or not, this is happening to us every year, on a grand scale or on a very small one.

Beginnings imply endings, as endings imply beginnings. And beginnings always call for a move into the unknown.

We are not in the same spot as last year. We do carry the blessing of last year with us (even if it felt like anything but a blessing). But we have had to leave last year behind, perhaps with relief, or perhaps with clinched fists. And this year we are closer to glory than we were last year, as each turn of the helix of God’s time brings us nearer to the fulfillment of all things.

Thanksgiving Chapel, Dallas
The Glory Window
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood range from bored babies whose young parents are the ones enthusiastic about Halloween, to expensively costumed children with specially designed trick-or-treat bags, to poor children with makeshift costumes and plastic grocery bags. Some have never seen a convent, and when we open the door, revealing a wooden Cenacle cross and the statue of our co-founder, Saint Therese Couderc, their eyes widen and they say with awe and simple courtesy, “I like your house!”

Somewhere around 8:00 , the teenagers begin to arrive. Year before last, they were mostly un-costumed and armed with a vaguely threatening air and gaping school backpacks as candy receptacles. This past year, however, brought a shift. The teenagers no longer seemed world-weary or menacing. They were dressed as butterflies and angels and other unidentifiable but innocent-looking creatures and seemed to be saying from their six-foot height, “We’re children, too!” They were delighting in the evening, and we delighted in their delight.

How many of them know, I wonder, that Halloween is the Eve of All Saints’ Day, their feast day, the feast of all God’s holy people, recognized and unrecognized? Of course, some of us seem to have a harder time with sanctity than others do, but the communion of saints links us all in companionship through the love of God. As the hymn puts it:

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

William W. How, “For All the Saints”

We are a motley crew, to be sure, but we who are still feebly struggling are just as beloved of God as those who are shining in glory. In a sense it is true that we all shine, even in the midst of the struggle. Thus the children with painted faces and sparkly or scary outfits, the teenagers still radiant with childhood or slouching to the door with their backpacks — all receive their treats and head back to the street, to borrow Wordsworth’s expression, “trailing clouds of glory.”

Sing praises to the Lord,
O you his saints,
and give thanks to his holy name.

(Psalms 30:4 RSV)

I love the prairie! So often I have seen the dawn come and the light flood over the land and everything turn radiant at once, that word “good” so profoundly affirmed in my soul that I am amazed I should be allowed to witness such a thing.

Our Cenacle foundress Saint Therese Couderc also knew that radiance. For her too, the word “good” was profoundly affirmed in her soul. She had a vision in which she saw the goodness of everything around her, and learned that God has communicated to all creation “something of his infinite goodness, so that we may meet it in everything and everywhere.”

I believe that one thing the Ascension of Jesus shows us is the goodness of earthly existence, indeed the radiance of human life.

As Karl Rahner points out, Jesus has not only ascended to heaven, but he has taken us with him! In this Rahner is following Paul who writes in Ephesians:

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (2:4-7)

Because Jesus has taken us with him, all that is proper to our human existence has become radiant. Nothing in the humanity which we share with Jesus is left to languish: neither our loves, nor the delight we have in the things of creation, nor our diminishment as we age, nor our disappointments, nor our pain. Nothing is wasted.

The radiance is often hidden, but occasionally we are vouchsafed a glimpse of what is really there, sometimes through simple occurrences and very small encounters. While ordinarily everything may seem solid and stolid to us, revealing nothing more than a surface reality, in those privileged moments events and people appear as if translucent, letting the glory that is theirs in Christ shine through.

If we are not paying, attention, however, we may not notice the beauty spread out before us:

• - A neglected plant in a pot abandoned outside the kitchen blooms through hurricanes and drought.

• - A student is returning to her homeland this summer to work for the destitude, in spite of the dangers of the political situation there.

• - The homeless woman who comes by our house expresses her longing for a real lodging, then prays, “But more of Jesus and less of me.”

Truly we should be amazed, like the narrator in Gilead, that we are allowed to witness such things.

Deep in the top layer, we came upon a series of black-and-white snapshots identified on the back as “St. Pat’s Day ‘48.” These featured scenes from a local parade, and as the floats carried people we didn’t know, the pictures were on their way to the discard pile — until we took a closer look at one of them. It showed an innocuous-looking float bearing a beauty queen in crown and long flowing gown, and proclaiming boldly (are you ready for this?) — “Miss Atom Bomb.” Behind Miss Atom Bomb was a large model of the bomb, and the lettering on the side of the float indicated that the sponsoring organization was the Society of American Military Engineers. In other words, the theme of the float was deadly serious.

I had heard of all sorts of beauty pageants, for men and women both, but I couldn’t get this one out of my mind. So I have been pondering the phenomenon of Miss Atom Bomb, and as I’ve pondered, I’ve remembered that, yes, we too have a crown awaiting us. We are a royal priesthood, as the first letter of Peter says. That makes us beauty queens and beauty kings, called to share in the loveliness of the God who is Beauty: whom Saint Augustine called, “O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.”

Unlike Miss Atom Bomb, however, we find our glory in the cross — an expression of weakness, not of force.

“But God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Galatians 6:14)

There is power in the cross, of course, the true power that burst forth on Easter morning — but it is not a power over anyone, not even over those we know are wrong — but a gift of life to all who will accept it.

As Christians we are not to take pride in our own power — whether it resides in weapons of mass destruction, or money, or honors, or physical strength, or intellectual strength. We hear, with Paul, God saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And we can respond, like Paul, “Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9, 10).

The crown awaiting us is a crown of life (see James 1:12), a far more desirable crown than the one Miss Atom Bomb is wearing. (By the way, if you are interested in this lesser sort of crown, you can purchase one online, silver plated with rhinestones, for $260.)

What is the glory that that is promised in this best of all beauty pageants?
In the Old Testament, the term glory is often used to express God’s presence as it is perceived by human beings. Therefore in the New Testament, “Christ is presented as the glory of God made visible on earth to those whose eyes are opened to see it…” ¹

God does grant us glimpses of glory. It’s just that we don’t always recognize them:
- partly because our human eyes are dim;
- partly, I think, because we are conditioned to thinking of glory in worldly terms: the glory of battle and of military strength (Miss Atom Bomb again); the glory of athletic prowess; the glory of wealth and fame. Society tells us that it is foolish to think of glory in terms of the cross and resurrection. We know better, but it is hard to get beyond our cultural conditioning.

It is easy to praise the glory of God revealed in the magnificence of nature. We have to gaze very reverently, though, to see glory in the people sitting across the breakfast table from us or slumped in front of the television; or in the people in line with us at the grocery store checkout counter; or in the ordinary events of daily life. It takes a special kind of heart-seeing to perceive the glory of Christ in someone slowly dying. (That kind of glory is something Pope John Paul II revealed to many people in his last months on earth.)

In this life we often behold glory in terms of Mystery. We look, we gaze, we feel, we rejoice, and we suffer — and so much of what we experience is incomprehensible to us. We are living the paradox of the already and the not-yet, a tension between the Resurrection of Jesus, which is already a reality in our lives and which expresses the fullness of glory, and our own resurrection, which is still to come. ² Christ has made all things new, yet we still experience the cross; and we still live in an age that glorifies destructive power (although we are probably too sophisticated now to crown a Miss Atom Bomb).

This is where we are — in the already and the not yet. But this is not where we will always be. “When Christ who is your life is revealed,” says Paul, “then you also will be revealed with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).

Christ who is your life right now, Christ who is the path you walk right now, Christ who is your all: when he appears, then you will be revealed with him in glory.

The Johannine writer puts it a little differently, but the meaning is the same.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

That is our glory. We will be like God. We are already made in the image of God. We are already God’s beloved children, but that likeness is to be fulfilled. In Christ, we will be like God. That is the glory in which we are to grow in this life, and which will be our final destination in Christ.
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1.  L. H. Brockington, Theological Wordbook of the Bible, edited by Alan Richardson (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 175).

2.  See the monumental book by N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003).

In fact, the communion procession was almost overwhelming in its beauty. There were people of all ages and races. There were families, some in “Sunday” outfits, others in what they would relax in later today. There were many students in jeans and shorts, and one young man with neon pink hair on half his head. The child in her white first communion dress, the black couple in striking African clothes, the woman in the wheelchair, the choir, the musicians — all were filing up in a kind of glory.

When Moses came down from the mountain, we are told that he “did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Exodus 34:29) These students and families, the children and old people, those who rejoice and those who mourn, the healthy and the sick — do they know how beautiful they all are? Do they know that the light of Christ is shining in them and around them?

“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor: 3:18)

It was indeed an impressive storm. As you might imagine, once in it, we could barely see the lights of the car ahead of us. At the point when it became almost impossible to tell whether or not we were on the road at all, we pulled over on the shoulder to wait it out with other prudent drivers.

Too often in daily life, it seems all we can see ahead of us is a wall of clouds. The road itself disappears. Even the usual markers become invisible. Wisely we pull off to the side to pray, to ponder, to avoid the most obvious dangers; but we can’t spend our whole lives there. Eventually we have to make decisions, take steps, move along. If we don’t, life moves us along willy-nilly.In fact, no matter how cautious we are, no matter how carefully we plan, the reality is that we never really know what the future holds.

Sometimes God graciously gives us an intuition that we are on the right path. Something happens — perhaps something small and apparently insignificant that we would miss if we weren’t paying attention — that lets us know we are where we were meant to be. It is like being on the highway, fearing we are lost, and finally seeing a sign saying, “Gainesville 25 miles.” Aha (we say to ourselves), I was on the right road all along, although I didn’t know it! And we breathe more easily.

No, we can’t see the future. What we can be confident of is that we are headed for glory, but what glory will actually look like, once we get there, again we don’t know. We do know that in moving toward glory, glory is already in our midst, and that when we arrive at our final destination, a place will have been prepared for us and — wonder of wonders — we will know that we are expected, and that we are home.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

(John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1833)