You Will Do Well to Be Attentive to It

August 6, 2008

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

By Melanie Rigney

As the visions during the night continued, I saw: One like a Son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven; When he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him, The one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)

The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. (Psalms 97:5)

We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:18-19)

Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”(Matthew 17:4)

Piety

O Christ, You will reform our lowly body and make it like Your glorious one, we pray for our brothers and sisters who have died that they may share Your glory forever.–From the Novena to Our Lord of Transfiguration at Catholic Doors Ministry.

Study

Today's Readings

Love After Love

You have to admire the growth in Peter.

In today’s Gospel, there he is, one of three apostles present when Jesus’s face shines “like the sun” and his clothes become “white as light” and presto, there are Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Can Peter appreciate the significance of what’s going on? Of course not. This is Peter, after all, the Peter who asks all the questions we would have asked ourselves if we’d been there with Jesus. He offers to make tents for the three of them. Then, as he’s talking, God himself speaks: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” No wonder Peter, James, and John all fall prostrate.

Contrast that with Peter’s second epistle, in which he recounts the Transfiguration, describing the “altogether reliable” prophetic message and unique declaration of honor and glory bestowed on Christ by God. “You will do well to be attentive to it, as a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,” he counsels. (While there is controversy over whether this epistle was in fact written by the apostle, the Catholic Encyclopedia says “it may be affirmed that it is solidly probable.”)

Like Peter, we can have trouble getting to that place where we are attentive to the message and the moment, rather than analyzing how we got there and where we’re going. An essay at Catholic Health System of Buffalo, New York, discusses the double meaning of being present spiritually: “There’s present, as in here, in attendance. And there’s present, as in now, a moment of time.” To be present for God, we must be present for ourselves. The essay concludes with this poem by Derek Walcott:

Love After Love

The time will come when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life,

whom you ignored for another,

who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Action

Be present to yourself and God for half a day this week. Turn off the cell phone or BlackBerry. Don’t check e-mail. Forget about radio or TV. Talk with the Lord about how you will feast on the life he has so generously granted you.