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Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry - 4 March 2012


Church of the Transfiguration, Mt Tabor

Church of the Transfiguration, Mt Tabor

What does the Transfiguration say to us today? Traditionally it has been interpreted in terms of Jesus fulfilling the Law and the Prophets. Hence his conversation with Moses who brought the law, and Elijah, an outstanding prophet). Or it has been seen as a gesture by Jesus to strengthen the disciples for the coming horror of the cross. Each of these interpretations would be valid. But I find myself standing in front of the Transfiguration, gazing at that light shining forth from Jesus. It tells us that where Jesus is, there love is, shining its light and bringing new hope, new courage, new peace. This, it seems to me, is the Christian task today, to make Jesus known and loved, to unveil that love, and allow its light to shine in our world. Where we can do this we will find, as St Paul wrote, that the transfiguring light shining out of Christ, transforms everyone it touches, so that they too are transfigured (2 Cor. 4.6).

It is in the light of the Transfiguration that we have to read the story of the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22). Parents today read this story with horror, understandably so. But we read the story wrongly if we take it that God could ever have approved the death of Isaac at the hands of this father. In fact, as we read the story we should hear echoing in our ears the words spoken by God at the Transfiguration: 'This is my Son, the Beloved.' Human love and divine love intertwine. There is love at the heart of the Trinity just as there is love within the human family. It is from this divine love in the Trinity that Christ is willing to come among us, even if it means that he will have to lay down his life.

For centuries children have died in wars and famines. They have died of easily preventable diseases. They have died of abuse and neglect. They have been worked to death. A world that prays that God's will should be done on earth as in heaven is a world that should not tolerate the suffering of children. Their distress is part of the great dead weight of human sin. The death of the Son of God on the cross challenges humankind to put an end to sin, and to strive for a world where such suffering is banished forever. This is why from the eternal heart of the Father there is the willingness to let his Son go to the cross. The light that shines from the face of Christ is the light of a love that is prepared to enter into the suffering of the world. Christ on the cross brings home the depth of sin and suffering in the world, and asks us to enter into a new way of living that he will make possible.

St Paul tells us today that 'God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to benefit us all.' Note that word - benefit. The self-offering of Christ, the generosity of the Father, are to inspire and make possible a goodness, a love and a mercy that will grow on earth wherever people open their hearts to Jesus. God does not obliterate human love and the ties that bind us to one another, rather, he asks us to expand our love so that more and more may be drawn in to share it, just as he was willing to give Christ to us so that we might be drawn into the circle of divine love.

Fr Terry is Parish Priest at St Mary's in Finchley East, north London. Fr Terry's latest book: Ronald Knox and English Catholicism is published by Gracewing at £12.99 and is available on Amazon, on ICN's front page. To read Sr Gemma Simmonds' review on ICN see: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=1611

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