Episode Details

The Transfiguration, 2026‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ 2 Corinthians 3:18In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.Why the Transfiguration?In his second epistle, the Apostle Peter wanted to convince his audience that what he was saying about Christ was not just another cleverly devised myth but that it was, in fact, the truth. He says that the Apostles ‘were eyewitnesses of his majesty’. That is, that they saw his majesty. But what he says after that is a little surprising. He does not mention Christ’s miracles – his feeding the five thousand, his healings and exorcisms, his raising people from the dead, or even his resurrection, as we might expect him to. But instead he mentions the Transfiguration.There was evidently something about the Transfiguration that struck Peter with an unforgettable force. Without overstating the case, we might even say that the Transfiguration revealed something about Christ which not even his miracles – not even his resurrection – did in quite the same way. The Transfiguration was, so Peter says, the moment when Christ ‘received honour and glory from God the Father’ – and this in a very particular way.And we see something of this particular and unique revelation if we look closely at the Scriptural account.The Light of the Vision of GodWe are told that the appearance of Christ’s face was altered and that his clothing became dazzling white. The great Eastern Orthodox father Gregory Palamas says here that this is the moment when the veil of the Incarnation was lifted and when Christ shone with the uncreated light and energy of God himself. Palamas wrote,“He was transfigured, not by assuming what He was not, nor by changing into what He was not, but by revealing to his disciples what He was, opening their eyes and giving sight to those who had been blind.”Palamas linked this with the disciples’ own participation in this vision, teaching that the uncreated light of God with which Christ shone will one day be the light in which all the saints of God share, saying,“The light of Tabor is the light of the Kingdom of God, in which the righteous shall shine forth like the sun.”This is particularly pertinent because only shortly before Peter’s reference to the Transfiguration in 2 Peter, the Apostle described the ultimate end of salvation, which is to become ‘partakers in the divine nature’.This is an often-underemphasised aspect of salvation in Western Theology, but the idea is that, through God’s grace and our participation in the vision of God, we too may be raised to the level of godhood in the Kingdom of Heaven. Our vision of God plays a crucial part in this process because it is by seeing God that we become transformed into his image. We become the vision of God, in this sense.This is very reminiscent of Psalm 36:9: ‘For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light.’And here we may also observe that it is through the light of the vision of God that we are returned to the world to see the world in a new way, with a new illumination. We no longer see with our earthly eyes, but we see with the eyes of God. This is what it is to be transformed by this vision.So, friends, as we come to Mass and as we enter into the Divine Liturgy together, let us open the eyes of our hearts, praying that we may have a vision of God in this place through Word and Sacrament. Let us cherish this vision and allow it to transform our vision, even as we make our way back down the mountain and enter once again into the everyday world.The Fulfilment of the ScripturesWe see also through the Transfiguration that Christ is the fulfilment of the Old Testament Scriptures. This is, of course, what Moses and Elijah represent, the Law and the Prophets. At the time, this was a shorthand way of referring to the whole of the Old T