Humanity Transfigured
It is sad that the great feast of Christ’s Transfiguration is tucked, almost unobtrusively, into the middle of the week. In some of the Eastern Christian traditions the feast is preceded by a vigil and followed by an octave. Nonetheless the Transfiguration remains one of the richest feasts of the liturgical year, worthy of prolonged pondering.
It might be called “the feast of integral humanism,” which celebrates not only Christ’s true identity as beloved Son of the Father, but the dignity and destiny of all who are being transformed in Christ’s likeness.
The great Paul VI brought the notion of integral humanism into the center of his papal magisterium, especially in his encyclical “Populorum Progressio” that calls for human development guided by and worthy of humanity’s God-given vocation. And Benedict XVI incorporated this theme into his recent encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” paying warm homage to Paul VI.
I think it fair to say that the image of the transfigured Christ was at the heart of Pope Paul’s spirituality, and I think it a singular act of divine Providence that Paul died on the day of the feast: August 6, 1978.
In his insightful and poignant biography of Paul VI, Peter Hebblethwaite recounts the last hours of the Pontiff. At 6:00 p.m. his secretary begins celebrating the Mass of the feast in the small chapel at Castelgandolfo with Paul lying on his death bed in the adjacent room.
Paul receives Communion under both kinds, his viaticum for the journey. As Mass ends Paul has a massive heart attack. It is as though he had exploded from within.
For another three hours Paul lingers on … murmuring repeatedly, faintly, as though for himself alone, “Our Father, who art in heaven …” By 9:30 p.m. even this ceases.
With everyone kneeling by his bedside, Cardinal Villot begins the prayers for the dying. Paul opens his eyes briefly, recognizes Villot, murmurs “grazie” and sketches a limp blessing before subsiding into a deep sleep, his last. There is no agony. At 9:41 the doctor says, “The Pope is dead.” Then the alarm clock [bought in Poland so many years before] went off.
I am grateful for Father Imbelli’s reflection on this beautiful feast and for his remembrance of the death day of the great Pope of the Council.
Thanks for that meditation. For a long time, I felt the Transfiguration was merely one of those symbolic events, meant to emphasize Christ’s divine nature, something that made him seem more remote and separate from us.
More recently, St. Teresa of Avila’s observation, one that I’ve been dragging around in my purse for two decades, strikes me as a reflection of the soul transfigured:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Christ has no body now but yours.
I have been privileged to know many individuals in whom I have seen “little transfigurations,” so to speak, from whose hands, or feet or eyes Christ looks, and I am grateful for their example. This is a good day to be thankful for them and for a deeper understanding of this feast.
Hello Fr. Imbelli (and All),
Thanks very much for this post. I will have to consult the Hebblethwaite biography sometime. (I hope it is still in print.)
I’ve said it before on this forum but given it’s the anniversary of Paul VI’s death I’ll repeat myself: For years I have thought that Paul VI has been terribly underrated, and sometimes unfarily maligned. I’ve even heard in private discussion the view that Paul VI was the real “culprit” of Vatican II for not preventing the spread of liberalization within the church after the council. In fact, I would rate Paul VI’s one of the most brilliant pontificates of them all. Just a handful of his contributions and achievements: (1) He was the first pope in centruries to visit countries outside of Italy, and first pope ever to to visit countries in five continents. (2) He was the first pope to name women as doctors of the church. (3) He explicitly appealed to the United Nations for an end to all wars. (4) He sold the Papal tiara and gave the money to the poor, which opened the door to the current practice of papal installation that replaced the practice crowning popes. And one could go on.
Of course, he made two especially momentous decisions. First, he allowed the council to continue after John XXIII died. And he could easily have spared himself much gratuitous criticism by simply closing the council when John XXIII died. Second, he promulgated Hamanae Vitae. Again, he could easily have spared himself much grief by taking a different path. I get the impression that in the end nearly everyone was angry at Paul VI, some for not in the end being more liberal and others because he took no vengeance against those who disagreed with him and even openly defied Papal teaching. But I wonder if Paul VI’s appraoch was really all that different from that of Jesus of Nazareth, who on the one hand insisted that He would not remove one stroke of the law but on the other hand always treated those who did not live up to the law with mercy.
The transformation of the rites for the sacraments following V2 is imo Paul VI’s greatest achievement. He made it possible for each and every sacrament to transcend the rites and reveal Christ’s love.
But I cannot fail to mention others who died on this day, especially since their deaths were a part of a reorientation of the Church’s pastoral ministry championed by Paul VI.
On 6 August 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
An Orthodox friend, who is a faithful reader of dotCommonweal, but, alas, does not comment, sent me this lovely invocation for the Feast of the Transfiguration in the Eastern liturgy:
“You were transfigured on the Mount, O Christ God,
revealing your glory to your disciples as far as they could bear it.
Let your everlasting light shine upon us sinners!
Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O giver of light, glory to you!”
The Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics celebrate the Feast on the same day as the West, but celebrate the entire octave — a fitting remembrance of this great Feast.
Excellent post, Fr. Imbelli. Seeing John Page’s comments, I can’t help thinking that, if the 1990′s ICEL and english speaking bishop conferences had been allowed to proceed (before LA and Vox Clara), that they might have moved the West towards this feast as a Sunday/primary feast and reclaimed some of what the Eastern Rite/Orthodox do.
Pete – “What Happened at Vatican II?” by John O’Malley lends a very different slant on the role and decisions of Paul VI starting mid-way through the 3rd session including the timing of his Jerusalem and UN visits. It also expands your brief comments around Humanae Vitae and other pronouncements. It is interesting that after HV, Paul VI never published another item. Can’t speak for Fr. O’Malley and may agree with much of what you have said, but he would expand that to more rounded view.
Thank you, Jean.
“And when they raised their eyes they saw no one but Jesus.”
Mr. DeHaas,
While it is the case that after “Humanae Vitae” Pope Paul did not write another encyclical, he by no means ceased “to publish.” One of his greatest and most enduring legacies is the Apostolic Exhortation of 1975, “Evangelii Nuntiandi” which, importantly, treats of the challenge of evangelizing culture.
Thanks, Fr. Imbelli – my oversight although my point was to go beyond just publications.
Please provide some feedback on this “very limping analogy” that is connected to the place of Paul VI. These are not well developed thoughts but more an outline that builds on the recent book from John O’Malley on What Happened at Vatican II?
The last US Gulf War from a techonogy and warfare standpoint was brilliant – the immediate goal – removal of Saddam Hussein – was accomplished within 4-6 weeks. Yet, in hindsight we now know that there was NO plan to “win the peace”; there were immediate mistakes e.g. dissmissal of the Iraqi Army; ignoring the historical division between Sunni, Shia, Kurd; an unwillingness or indifference to the fact that it was a nation that was more tribal than national, etc. It took the US almost 5 years to eventually learn from its mistakes and follow thru with a more effective nation building plan that was bottom up and put the emphasis on the Iraqi people.
As I finished O’Malley’s book (and you may not agree with all of his points), he definitely lays out a change in methodology, approach, and the role of the papacy from the 3rd session of VII onwards. The tension between the majority and the minority was and is still there but it appears that Paul more and more short circuited much of the work and spirit/direction in the 3rd and 4th sessions with his interventions; reserving some topics to himself (birth control); not permitting some issues to be discussed (celibacy); stopping all efforts at curial reform. O’Malley also writes about the tension between the “center” (e.g. curia) and the rest of the world (2,000+ bishops). Simplistically, the center was predominantly the “minority” and Paul effectively stopped any development of “collegiality” via national bishops’ conferences, subsidiarity, etc.
The result is – a series of well developed and in some cases “revolutionary” documents and church goals but it was left to the center to implement. Initially, bishop conferences did take the initiative and did apply Vatican II to their own regions. But, over time the “center” dominated any efforts to continue development and, in fact, appear to have created a “reform of the reform.” So, effectively the minority were left to implement the majority directives – but the minority (could have been well-intentioned) were opposed or saw some of these directives as threats to the church. We seem to have lived in this tension between the minority and majority since 1975 – JPII only solidified the centralization (thus, the center/minority) and B16 seems unwilling to address this tension despite issues such as sex abuse, celibacy, right to life, etc.
My point in comparing the two stories – both effectively and in some ways brilliantly developed wise directions both short and long term but there was no effort or thinking involved in how these goals would be implemented beyond generalizations, vague responsibilities, etc. In the case of the church, responsibility to bishop conferences that were quickly thwarted by the center.
So, we live today with that tension – at the extreme, it is partisan, ideological, self-defeating. The focus has shifted from major issues such as ecumenism, mission, engagement with the world to internal tensions around liturgy, control, sexual ethics.
Any way, just some random thoughts.