Around Christ, In Christ
The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent narrates the temptations of Jesus. That for the Second Sunday celebrates Jesus’ Transfiguration. The Lucan account of the Transfiguration begins with the words, “After eight days” (omitted from the lectionary reading).
In his small, but rich book, The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ, Rowan Williams writes:
Christ’s light alone will make the final pattern coherent, for each of us as for all human history. And that light shines on the far side of the world’s limits, the dawn of the eighth day. When Jesus is transfigured, it is as if there is a brief glimpse of the end of all things — the world aflame with God’s light.
In the strength of that glimpse, things become possible. We can confront today’s business with new thoughts and feelings, reflect on our sufferings and our failures with some degree of hope — not with a nice and easy message of consolation but with the knowledge that there is a depth to the world’s reality and out of that comes the light which will somehow connect, around and in Jesus Christ, all the complex, painful, shapeless experience of human beings.
on February 28th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Interesting insight which is exactly what we have come to expect from Rowan Williams. For several centuries now the idea has been about that humanity on its own could understand and govern the world of nature, human nature included. Anyone who takes a good look at our present state of affairs must have doubts about that. Williams reminds us that we can drop any facile optimism that may remain, not out of despair, but but out of a deeper hope founded in Christ.
on February 28th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Beautiful quotation from Rowan Williams.
Reminds me of Benedict XVI talking about purgatory in Spe Salvi:
“Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation ‘as through fire’.”
–III:47
on February 28th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Gerelyn,
thank you for the fine association with “Spe salvi.” I think the theme of transfiguration is central to the theological-spiritual vision of both Rowan and Benedict.
on February 28th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I heartily appreciate the wisdom of this passage. I take it that it is entirely consistent with the requirements of the Beatitudes, namely that we commit ourselves to doing all we can to make this world more of a place of justice, compassion, and peace.
on February 28th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Consistent, yes, since though it is one of the breakthroughs of divine Glory in the scriptural text and even thought the three apostles are in Heaven while it lasts, the theophany is connected with the paschal mystery and the future of the Kingdom of God, as well as with the message spoken by the voice, just as Abram’s theophany in the first reading is connected with the message of the Covenant and Moses’s theophany on Sinai is connected with the Law. Glory is at the heart of Scripture. but Glory is known at the hour of sacrifice, and all the scenarios of Glory have a practical or ethical and future oriented setting and upshot. Unfortunately, Rowan Williams gives the biblical vision a slightly distorting Platonic cast when he uses the phraseology of “the final pattern, the end of all things, the world aflame with God’s light, the far side of the world’s limits, the light that somehow connects, etc. He should have paid closer attention to the embeddedness of the transfiguration narratives in a precise narrative context. The quote from Spe Salvi has little to do with the Transfiguration narrative, and indeed it is not clear what its biblical sources are.
on March 1st, 2010 at 8:55 am
Platonic? Perhaps. I leave that up to those who know far more about Platonism than I (which is most people). I read Archbp. Williams’ first paragraph in a somewhat different way, illuminating (or illuminated by) Dante’s experience in the Paradiso, where though his understanding remains imperfect, he too catches a “brief glimpse of the end of all things,” and presumably after the poem is over, carries it back down to earth with him in the form of a hope now presuming on certainty.
on March 1st, 2010 at 11:01 am
“When Jesus is transfigured, it is as if there is a brief glimpse of the end of all things — the world aflame with God’s light.”
The irony of Archbishop Willliams’ remark, with which I agree, is that Peter , James, and John were both dumbstruck (who wouldn’t be?) and confused by the Transfiguration. Peter babbles about building separate tents for Christ, Moses, and Elijah. Yet I can’t help but believe that witnessing this event provided these three Apostles, and by extension other Apostles, with the courage and zeal to spread Christ’s message and, for some of them, to face martyrdom. Certainly the events of Pentecost also delivered large doses of courage and zeal, but much like the dramatic and profound change that took place in Paul after he had a vision of the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Peter, James, and John must have been forever transformed when they had time to reflect on what had transpired on that day.
on March 1st, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Not only did they encounter the Risen Christ, they witnessed His Ascension into Heaven.
on March 1st, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Joseph O Leary says “the three apostles are in Heaven while it lasts” it being the “theophany”. Is it possible to be in heaven and yet as muddled as Simon Peter is?
on March 1st, 2010 at 1:58 pm
“In this way, the inter-relationship between Justice and Grace also become clear. The way we live our lives is not inmaterial, but our defilement does not stain us forever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards Truth and towards Love.”-Spe Salvi
http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2007/12/thoughts-on-pope-benedict-xvis-spe.html
on March 1st, 2010 at 6:56 pm
I think I might be muddled if I suddenly found myself in Heaven. Remember Newman:
‘A careless, a sensual, an unbelieving mind, a mind destitute of the love and fear of God, with narrow views and earthly aims, a low standard of duty, and a benighted conscience, a mind contented with itself, and unresigned to God’s will, would feel as little pleasure, at the last day, at the words, “Enter into the joy of thy Lord,” as it does now at the words, “Let us pray.”‘
But the language of the Transfiguration narrative is full of the usual metaphors of Glory, notably the cloud and the sleepiness: and Peter’s not knowing what he is saying is an indication of the ineffability of the experience of Glory and not a critique of his low or muddled state of mind.
Yes, Rowan Williams may have Dante in mind — which is again in a broad sense Platonic.
on March 1st, 2010 at 11:12 pm
F.Y.I.-
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vis/dinamiche/e3_en.htm