In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, greetings for this most radiant feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration, which we must celebrate with all solemnity, seeking to spiritually enter into and comprehend the profound meaning and calling of the Lord’s metamorphosis upon the slopes of Mount Tabor.
We must never underestimate the significance of this feast, on which Tabor became the Mountain of Vision, as the chosen disciples glimpsed the glory and Divinity of the Saviour – hidden beneath His humanity – and we momentarily not only encounter and behold the Saviour as God, but also glimpse the glory of the age to come: the heavenly glory to which we are called as heirs according to His promise.
On this feast Mount Tabor calls us to the radiant vision and a glorious meeting: the meeting of man and God; the meeting of apostles and prophets; the meeting of time and eternity; the meeting of the living and the dead, as the Lord of Life called Elias from the heights of Heaven and Moses from the depths of Sheol; and – in the Transfigured Saviour Himself – the meeting of Divinity and Humanity in the Logos (Word) Made Flesh.
The Mountain of Vision calls each of us to look to greetings for this most radiant and the heights, in an uphill pilgrimage of Faith – to spiritual ascent in the footsteps of the Saviour and His chosen disciples.
“Come”, Tabor says, “Put aside all earthly cares; leave behind the level and easy paths and streets of worldly living. Gird yourselves with prayer and fasting, set your feet upon my slopes, and climb, with the world and its ways behind you.”
“Rise above worldliness,” she calls, “Having glimpsed upon my slopes not only the Saviour’s Divine radiance, but also the glory to which He calls you: the glory with which the face of Moses the God-seer shone after he spoke with the Lord upon the heights of Sinai; the glory into which the prophet Elias rode in the fiery chariot of his ascension; the glory briefly glimpsed by Peter, James and John until they fell down, unable to bear it.”
“Having glimpsed that glory, forget the short lived comforts of the world”, she bides us, “Setting your hopes and aspirations even beyond the glory briefly glimpsed upon my slopes. Look beyond my heights, though they were bathed with heavenly and uncreated light, to seek, rather, the changeless glory of eternity and the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Climb”, she says, “Even though the labour may tire you, and by your upward steps, ascend to higher things; climbing from temporality and the short lived sorrows and even joys of quickly passing life, into the heights, beyond which lies the eternity glimpsed by the disciples.”
“Forget comfort and possession, treasure or reward, and all that weighs you down,” she counsels us, “To climb my slopes freely, unencumbered, and without burden.”
“And, if you stumble and fall”, she encourages us, “Struggle to your feet, bathe and bind your cuts and wounds, and continue the upward journey, even if battered and bruised, seeking the glory of the Lord.”
And, by doing these things, with the world and its traps and shackles behind us, freed from the captivity of earthly obsessions, the perishing and deceptive hold of power, wealth, fame, popularity, worldly success, and liberated from the short-lived and illusory comforts of purely fleshly and material existence, the eyes of our hearts will begin to open.
Rather than simply beholding life with the material and sensory eyes of earthly existence, we will begin to behold spiritual realities and truths, recognising that not only are we called to be spiritual beings even in our earthly lives, but that the pure in heart, labouring in prayer and repentance, struggling to acquire grace and holiness, will begin to see the true realities of the spiritual realms and spiritual life.
Even during our earthly lives, we must heed the example of the holy apostles and the saints who have made the spiritual journey beyond the limits of this visible, purely material and physical world, so that we may contemplate the things of eternity and the heavenly mysteries that are revealed to the pure in heart.
The radiant glory of the Lord’s Divinity in the uncreated light of Tabor, was not a sudden phenomenon of blinding light, but rather the eternal and abiding glory of the Pre-Eternal Word Made Flesh revealed to earthly men, and it was the opening of the spiritual eyes of the Lord’s companions that momentarily allowed them a glimpse of his Divine glory.
In his homily on the Transfiguration, Saint Gregory Palamas, the great instructor of spiritual truths reminds us that,
“…the initiates of the Mystery, (the disciples) of the Lord at this time passed beyond mere flesh into spirit through a transformation of their senses, effectualized within them by the Spirit, and in such a way that they beheld what, and to what extent, the Divine Spirit had wrought blessedness in them to behold the Ineffable Light.”
Unless we labour to pass beyond flesh and blood, and beyond the earthly and material, reaching out to the Lord and ascending to Him in prayer, struggling to purify body and soul, heart and mind – how can we attempt to follow even in the shadows of Peter, James and John?
We must fast and pray, purifying body and soul, heart and mind, consecrating and raising them to the Lord, heeding St Gregory’s counsel that,
“…what brought forth this blessed sight was prayer, and that the radiance occurred and was manifest by uniting the mind with God, and that it is granted to all who, with constant exercise in efforts of virtue and prayer, strive with their mind towards God.“
Like Peter, the impetuous, we should be stirred to say to the Lord, “It is good for us to be here…”, but we cannot even hope to contemplate the glory of the Lord and the life of Grace unless we have heeded the call to “Lay aside all earthly cares” and left those very cares and concerns behind us and below us in the valleys of the world.
In contemplating the glory of the Lord on Tabor, and seeking the Kingdom of God, it is NOT enough to believe and hope. Rather, we must listen and act, in prayer and asceticism, walking and struggling as children of the resurrection, always following Christ the True Light.
Let us heed St Gregory as he calls us to the illumined path of holiness and faith.
“Let us… strive to be illumined by this Light ourselves and encourage in ourselves love and striving towards the Unfading Glory and Beauty, purifying our spiritual eyes of worldly thoughts and refraining from perishable and quickly passing delights and beauty which darken the garb of the soul and lead to the fire of Gehenna and everlasting darkness. Let us be freed from these by the illumination and knowledge of the incorporeal and ever-existing Light of our Saviour transfigured on Tabor, in His Glory, and of His Father from all eternity, and His Life-Creating Spirit, Whom are One Radiance, One Godhead, and Glory, and Kingdom, and Power, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.”
