Today August 6

Today is the feast of the Transfiguration. Much has been said and much ink has been spilled on this great subject. Our former Holy Father, John Paul II, even made it another mystery of the Rosary (fourth mystery of light). But I think Frank Sheed had a real handle on it when he pointed out that we tend to focus on Peter, James and John in this episode "almost as though the whole incident had been staged for their sake. Strengthened and comforted by it they certainly were, but they were not principals. Jesus conversed with Moses and Elijah: the three apostles were asleep part of the time and contributed nothing. Only one of them said anything at all . . . but he himself tells us, through Mark (9:5), that he was too frightened to know what he was saying." - "To Know Christ Jesus."

Frank Sheed called the Transfiguration "the gospel to the Dead" and insisted that (besides Jesus, of course), the principals are really Moses and Elijah. And in Luke's Gospel we learn they most details, especially what Jesus had gone up to mountain to do (pray) and what he conversed with Moses and Elijah about -- they, too, who were in glory. They were speaking of the death that He would die in Jerusalem.

The gates of heaven were about to be opened, due to the final and perfect sacrifice. Moses, the law-giver, dead these 1500 years, and Elijah, the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, who was caught up in a whirlwind 800 years before, must have received the news joyfully and passed it on to those of the expectant faithful in Sheol ("Abraham's bosom").

I think we don't think of this because, like children, we (the living) think we are the center of the universe, or at least the only thing that matters. As far as the dead, even the glorious dead (like Moses and Elijah . . . or at least Moses anyway), out of sight, out of mind. But God who sees all and more importantly, sees all in its proper perspective, knows that the dead "count" and so Jesus, who is God, shared with them (and by extension, with all those in the bosom of Abraham) the good news that the redemption was at hand and how it was to be accomplished. Good news, indeed!