Aug 6 – Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
Today we celebrate the occasion on which Christ revealed Himself in shining splendour to Peter, James, and John. Moses and Elijah were present, and are taken to signify the Law and the Prophets. They testify to Jesus as the promised Messiah. God the Father also proclaimed him as such, saying, “This is my Beloved Son. Listen to him.” For a moment, the veil is drawn aside, and men still on earth are permitted a glimpse of the heavenly reality, the glory of the Eternal Triune God.
– http://satucket.com/lectionary/Tranfiguration.htm
Dan 7:9-10,13-14
2 Pet 1:16-19
Mt 17:1-9
We heard this ourselves, spoken from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.
“Spiritual, but not religious”; that’s how a friend identified herself to me. I asked her what that meant. She said she still believed in God, but she didn’t subscribe to the limitations of religion. She said she had stopped going to church, and though born Catholic, it was “difficult” for her to be at Mass now. She doesn’t enjoy the homilies; she finds them to be all hail and brimstone. She doesn’t feel welcomed; she thinks parishioners are like a country club set. Most of all, she simply doesn’t feel touched. And therein is the illuminating comment that sets up today’s reflection – she hasn’t had a personal experience with God.
Each of the readings today is a highly descriptive glimpse of someone’s personal experience with God – the prophetic visions of Daniel; Peter’s eyewitness account of the Transfiguration; Matthew’s retelling of his own experience of the same event. All three have that in common, that deeply personal, Damascene jolt to one’s core. Why it happens for some, and not for others, I cannot say. Grace? Receptivity? Circumstance? I couldn’t tell you. I do believe though, that if you seek, you will find. Because God is always, always seeking you. And when He finds you, your relationship with God is the one relationship in your life where even if you give a little, you’ll get A LOT. You cannot say the same of your human relationships, and most certainly not the human relationships you make in today’s culture, where so many encounters are like…‘consumables’. That’s not God. When He encounters you, you’ll be changed permanently. Transfigured, to use the language of scripture.
So what to do with my cradle Catholic friend on the margins of the church? Because we all have someone like that, no? People we care about, who have drifted but are still waiting in the wings to return, if they could only have that one, deeply personal encounter with God. Well…reach out to them. Be the Love. Be the Love that accompanies and completes Faith in 1 Corinthians 13. Be the channel for God to deliver that which they seek. Be the Love.
Be the Love.
Be the Transfigured.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Sharon Soo)
Prayer: We pray for all who are seeking God, but who have yet to find Him. We pray that God pierces their hearts with His insight and His love, that they might finally find that which they seek – Him.
Thanksgiving: We give thanks for the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we give the deepest thanks for our own personal encounter with God, for the people who helped to make that happen, and for God’s steadfastness when in our human frailty, we waver.
OXYGEN 
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