Feast of the Transfiguration (A): Matthew 17:1-9
You know something’s happening here
but you don’t know what it is
do you, Mr. Jones? – Bob Dylan
Old Mr. Webster could never define
what’s bein’ said between your heart and mine
– from the song “When You Say Nothing At All”
recorded by Alison Krauss & Union Station
All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
as from the Lord who is the Spirit. – 2 Corinthians 3:18
Who are we, really? Or, what are we intended to be? Since each one of us has our personal vocation, a part of our response to this will also be personal and unique. However, as human beings, we share a common nature and, in a general sense, a common vocation. What might that be?
In the pluralistic culture that we live in, we are offered various answers to that question. Not only that, but our culture would have us believe that no one answer is any better or nearer the truth than any other. Each answer is equally valid if it somehow “works” for someone – but what “works” might mean in this context is never clear. Because one answer is as good as another, as they say, we must be tolerant of people who have answers different from our own. Inclusivity and niceness are the norms of the day. Even religions are judged solely on how nice their adherents are to others.
There’s nothing wrong with being nice, in and of itself, of course. The world can always use more niceness. However, nearly anyone can learn to be nice when being nice will get them what they want. Sometimes, earning someone’s trust is simply a prelude to exploiting that trust in some way. So, being nice, in and of itself, isn’t enough. What’s going on within? Who are we meant to be, and how do we get there?
As a way to enter this question, I will present two moments when someone has a revelation of his or her own nature and that of humanity in general. One is from the reported experience of an actual person. The other is from literature – although one can easily imagine such a character in real life. Then, I hope to show how this feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord reconciles these two seemingly different experiences and points to a fuller answer to the question with which I began this post.
The first moment is well-known to people who are fans of Thomas Merton, the convert and Trappist monk who became well-known for his writings, beginning with his autobiography “The Seven Storey Mountain”. In his book “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, Merton describes an experience he had during a trip to Louisville in 1958, as he was at the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets. Here are a few excerpts:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness… There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun… I suddenly saw this secret beauty of their hearts.”
A number of people over the years have commented on this experience. Some of these comments are tinged with the commenter’s prejudice against the contemplative life – as though Merton finally “got it” and realized that his monastic life was somehow deficient compared with the lives of “real” people. But his experience offers us at least a piece of the answer to our question, and one that looks like an echo of the experience of Peter, James and John, whose vision of the transfigured Jesus is related in similar terms. This is perfectly in accord with our Catholic faith. We believe that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. Why, then, shouldn’t we shine in some way like the Lord did?
It is tempting to stop here and go no further. We are all people shining like the sun. We just don’t know it. But, as Merton knew very well in his writings, that’s not the whole story. Why don’t we know that we are all walking around, shining like the sun? better yet, why do we feel – all too often – like we are anything but shiny?
Here is where our second experience comes in. It is drawn from the stories of Flannery O’Connor, a Catholic author from the south who wrote many of her stories in the 1950’s. Her stories can be difficult reading for people today. Her characters speak in the common politically-incorrect language of the time. Moreover, her characters are often personalities on steroids. They have definite good points, but they are all seriously troubled or wounded in some way. Everything is exaggerated, and deliberately so, to make it as hard as possible for the reader to miss the point. And the point often comes uncomfortably close to home.
One of O’Connor’s stories is called “Revelation”. The main character is a Mrs. Turpin. She and her husband are in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. She is quick to point out that her husband is the one who is sick and needs a doctor, not her. As the story progresses, we see her outwardly seeming very nice, engaging others in the writing room in conversation. But we also get to hear her inner commentary while she speaks with the others in the waiting room. She is passing harsh judgment on them all, and obviously feels superior to all of them. At one point, she says, “If it’s one thing I am, it’s grateful. When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, a little of everything and a good disposition besides, I just feel like shouting ‘Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is!'”
At that moment, a book hits her in the head, hurled by a young woman she had already disparaged as ill-mannered. The young woman is then at Mrs. Turpin’s throat, literally, and has to be pulled off by the others in the room. Yet somehow, Mrs. Turpin feels that this seemingly crazed young woman knows her “in an intense and personal way”. She says to the young woman, “What you got to say to me?” The answer comes right back: “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog!” Despite assurances from the others in the room that this young lady was crazy, Mrs. Turpin feels that she was somehow right. As she is carried away, we learn the young woman’s name: Mary-Grace. A moment of grace, perhaps?
From this point in the story, Mrs. Turpin finds that her certainties about herself and her place in life are shattered. Things come to a head a little later, as she is standing near her hog pen. She looks up at the sky, and first sees a purple streak. Then, “she saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth… Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs.” At the rear of the procession, she saw people like herself – “proper, dignified, sure of themselves” – but “that by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away”. As Robert Barron says in commenting on this story: “Her people were there, but in the back, a little stunned to be in such company and feeling naked and exposed, the shield of their virtues gone. Saints are not those who are free from sin; they are those who have the humility and grace to join the parade of redeemed sinners.”
Thus, we find ourselves in a strange place. We can truly shine like the sun. And yet, we are also sinners who need to somehow acknowledge our sins so that we can be free to be humble before the Lord. Both experiences express something true about ourselves. But which has the upper hand, so to speak? Which one is our intended destiny?
This is made clear in the Gospel account of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Matthew begins by giving us a clue that something very important is about to take place: Jesus, we are told, takes only Peter, James and John with him up a mountain. Only these three are near Jesus at Gethsemane, for example. Then, they see Jesus transfigured, shining like the sun. Jesus, who comes to us as true God and as true man, shows us our intended destiny. We are created to shine like the sun; to exult and rejoice at reflecting, in some small way, the Lord Himself. Then, however, the Father’s voice is heard: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!”. Why is this crucial? Before this point in the story, Jesus had been telling his disciples that they would be going to Jerusalem, where Jesus would suffer and die and rise again. They themselves would need to carry their cross every day and follow him. They would need to accept the reality of their own sinfulness and weakness, seek forgiveness and grace, and walk with trust in the way of the Lord Jesus, wherever it might lead. If they are also to shine like the sun in the Kingdom of God, they cannot place their hope only in their own virtues or abilities. They would need to learn, by their own failures, to trust in the mercy of God. Only then would they be fully prepared to begin their ministry of witnessing to the power of the death and resurrection of Christ to the world.
Years ago, a popular book (and saying) was entitled “I’m OK, You’re OK”. If we, like Mrs. Turpin, believe that we are okay as we are, then we can’t see the need for grace, or for God. Then, it becomes too easy to slide into the temptation of seeing ourselves as superior to others. The Catholic writer Anthony de Mello had his response to that: “I’m an ass, and so are you!” It is only when we can truly acknowledge that in us – whatever our outward appearances may be – that we can find grace and freedom.
As a way to follow up on this reflection, I encourage you to read two books, in whole or in part: “The Strangest Way” by Robert Barron and (at least) the chapter of C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” entitled “Nice People or New Men”. The Lewis chapter expands on one of the points I have tried to make. I would recommend that people read “The Strangest Way” before they read or watch Bishop Barron’s “Catholicism”. I’d also recommend it to RCIA teams and to people who feel drawn to the Catholic Church. It cuts to the heart of what being Catholic is all about.