Homily Notes
From Reading Jean Corbon's Wellspring of Worship
-- A connection with the divine fire in the bush before Moses: the fire does not destroy the bush (similarity)... but the fire in the bush are not one in the same, whereas the flesh of the divine Son is actually permanently divinized, on fire
-- St. Serapion: The Virgin conceived, formed, and gave birth to this "body of the Word".
-- St. Gregory of Nyssa: Those who draw near to him touch his body, but "his flesh is divine"; those who look upon him see a mortal man like themselves, but his face is "the face of life".
-- the context of this event, which really is a summit event in the Gospels: the lead apostle Peter has correctly acknowledged the divine sonship of Jesus... and from that point on Jesus starts telling them about his imminent death on Calvary. There is a merciful confirmation of his divine identity, given for the sake of the apostles before the horrific event of Calvary.
-- Jesus did not somehow change in his nature before their eyes: rather, his actual nature was made visible to them.
-- St. John Damascene: Christ "was transfigured, not by acquiring what he was not but by manifesting to his disciples what he in fact was; he opened their eyes and gave these blind man sight."
-- The voice of the Father is overflowing heavenly thrill that cannot be contained, coming in light of the fact that Sun has began explicitly to express the event that will fulfill the Father's will.
-- "The three disciples, for their part, are flooded for a few moments by that which it will be granted to them to receive, understand, and experience from Pentecost on, namely, that divinizing light that emanates from the body of Christ, the multiform energies of the Spirit who gives life. The thing that overwhelms them here is that 'this man' is not only 'God with man' but God-man; nothing can pass from God to man or from man to God except through his body."
-- the Eastern churches regard the Transfiguration as the event that is the source of the sacramental liturgy.
-- Once Jesus conquered death, the limitations of his human mortality were overcome, and his body could become fully "sacramental" As a result of the cross and resurrection.
-- St. Ambrose: "By his ascension Christ passed into his mysteries."
-- Don't simply imagine Christ "up there", and the church "down here" with her sacraments. Instead, think about a single body of Christ which is a great and unique sacrament. Jesus continues now with an infinitely greater exercise of power to divinize men in his very body which is the Church.
-- "The body of Jesus... is a sacrament; it is anointed with the divine nature in the unity of the person of the Son. Because the humanity of Jesus is filial in every fiber of its being and in his love-inspired consent, it can make its own the least movements and deepest wounds of our humanity and fill them with the life of Father. The divinizing energies of the body of Christ will reach us henceforth in our entire being, in our body. When the Lord then takes one or other of our fleshly realities -- water, bread, wine, oil, man and woman, the contrite heart -- he links it to his growing body and causes it to share in his life-giving influence. What we call the sacraments are in fact the divinizing actions of the body of Christ in our own very humanity. In a fully realistic spiritual sense, these energies are sacramental, for otherwise they could not galvanize us. We can receive the Spirit of Jesus only because Jesus assumes our body."
-- Think of the vision Jesus grants to them as a prophetic mirror, allowing them to see what they are to become as they also get "divinized" by receiving Him.
-- The Transfiguration continues today... especially in the Mass.
From Reading Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea
-- St. Ambrose: "Or else, according to your capacity is the word either lessened or increased to you, and unless you ascend the summit of a higher wisdom, you behold not what glory there is in the Word of God. Now the garments of the Word, are the discourses of the Scriptures, and certain clothings of the Divine mind; and as his raiment shone white, so in the eyes of your understanding, the sense of the divine words becomes clear. Hence after Moses, Elijah; that is, the Law and the Prophets in the Word. For neither can the Law exist without the Word, nor the Prophet, unless he prophesied of the Son of God."
-- St. Ambrose: "For it is the overshadowing of the divine Spirit which does not darken, but reveals secret things to the hearts of men."
Definition of "Sacrament": A tangible sign instituted by Christ that transmits the grace it signifies.
