Ever wondered why the Transfiguration filled disciples with holy terror? Or, pondered upon the symbolic representation of Jesus appearing with Moses and Elijah? We, your hosts Jordan Waiko, Father Andrew Hamilton, and Father Christopher Pujol, delve into these complex questions in our latest podcast episode. Through a close examination of the biblical event from Mount Tabor to the Old Testament, we unveil the profound theological connection between the Transfiguration, the completion of the old covenant, and the inception of the new.
In a fascinating twist, we also reflect on why Jesus wanted to maintain secrecy around the Transfiguration. Is it important to start with the basics when it comes to spreading faith? To answer this, we discuss the fundamental concept of why we are made for love. This understanding opens up a whole new perspective on the mystery of the trinity and the indwelling of the spirit within us. With references straight from the scriptures and comprehensive theological insights, this episode will enrich your understanding of faith in an extraordinary way. So, prepare for a spiritual sojourn like no other, as we unravel these mysteries together.
Ever wondered why the Transfiguration filled disciples with holy terror? Or, pondered upon the symbolic representation of Jesus appearing with Moses and Elijah? We, your hosts Jordan Waiko, Father Andrew Hamilton, and Father Christopher Pujol, delve into these complex questions in our latest podcast episode. Through a close examination of the biblical event from Mount Tabor to the Old Testament, we unveil the profound theological connection between the Transfiguration, the completion of the old covenant, and the inception of the new.
In a fascinating twist, we also reflect on why Jesus wanted to maintain secrecy around the Transfiguration. Is it important to start with the basics when it comes to spreading faith? To answer this, we discuss the fundamental concept of why we are made for love. This understanding opens up a whole new perspective on the mystery of the trinity and the indwelling of the spirit within us. With references straight from the scriptures and comprehensive theological insights, this episode will enrich your understanding of faith in an extraordinary way. So, prepare for a spiritual sojourn like no other, as we unravel these mysteries together.
Jordan:
You're listening to the Catholic Accent Podcast. In this podcast, we discuss the acts and miracles that Jesus performed that stunned his disciples. I'm Jordan Waiko, along with Father Andrew Hamilton and Father Christopher Pujol.
Fr. Chris:
It seems like these weeks come around faster and faster.
Jordan:
Jordan. Where's same shirt? All the time I wear the same shirt. Ha ha ha. Today's topic is transfiguration. Why don't you set the stage for us, father? You said that every episode.
Fr. Andrew:
I actually think I'm going to pass it over to Father Chris Pujol.
Jordan:
I'll just say okay. The account of transfiguration is one of those miracles in the gospel that terrifies the disciples who see it. Why do you think they're terrified?
Fr. Chris:
Well, I think the transfiguration isn't necessarily the type of terrifying that you would get from watching a horror movie, but rather it's like that fear of God, that holy terror, because they're seeing all of their beliefs come to fruition. So you have the disciples up on Mount Tabern, and it's important to stop there and say that in the Old Testament, any time that a person was going to encounter God, he would be on a mountaintop. So we see Moses on top of Mount Sinai where he receives the Ten Commandments. Now we see here Jesus going up to Mount Tabern and there he's transfigured with Moses and Elijah, moses being the great law giver so that's the law and Elijah, the prophet so encompassing all of the Old Testament is now surrounding Jesus and they're seeing this happen. So what they're seeing is something that Moses himself didn't even experience.
Fr. Andrew:
On the Sinai Right. It's like awesome in the sense of not just like a banal word, awesome that we say after something, but it's like it's not. Yeah, and even if you would look out throughout scripture, there's always an implied fear whenever there's what's called a theophany, or whenever God, theo God, shows himself to his disciples, or two people. But, there's always this like implied fear. Think about the angel Gabriel, a messenger of the Lord, coming to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Be not afraid.
Fr. Chris:
Jesus is shepherds in Bethlehem. They were afraid, they were filled with fear constantly that that seems to come back up.
Fr. Andrew:
And even Jesus, whenever we talked about in one of our previous podcasts, about the walking on the water, he says take courage. It is I, be not afraid, and even it is I, as a sign of his divinity. When you look back into the I know it's a different language with Greek ego, a me meaning I am right. Whenever God shows himself, y'all way to Moses, he says.
Fr. Chris:
I am.
Fr. Andrew:
I am sent you.
Fr. Chris:
And so God is the great.
Jordan:
I Well. Why does he appear with Moses and Elijah? Why not Abraham and Isaiah or another prophet?
Fr. Andrew:
This is a good question. Yeah, so Moses and Elijah, as Father Chris Pujol laid out that they were insinuating the law, and then the greatest of the prophets. So Abraham is a patriarch, a father in the faith, but people would follow the law of Moses. Even the first books of the Old Testament were called the books of Moses the Pentateuch, the collection of the law Right.
Fr. Andrew:
And then the role of the prophets was always to call Israel, the people, back from straying away from God, back to God himself. Now, Elijah in the Old Testament was assumed into heaven right on a chariot of fire.
Fr. Andrew:
And we're told that Moses nobody actually knows where he's buried, which is interesting, and it was implied through some of the tradition of the church that maybe Moses himself, through looking at the transfiguration, was actually assumed as well to heaven. So they're already there glorying in God, but now they're giving assent to Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, showing forth his divinity in the transfiguration.
Fr. Chris:
It's also important to remember at the beginning of this passage it says after six days, and Jesus didn't take up everybody. So what happens? On the seventh day of creation, God rested, and now Jesus, who is the great creator, is taking a very selective group of apostles up the mountain Peter, James and John and by their witness they're now seeing God's revelation come to fruition. And so what's important is that in Christ's transfiguration, in his death, in his resurrection, in the whole Paschal mystery, in the sending of the Holy Spirit on this seventh day, God is both resting and saying that he has recreated. So it's like oftentimes in theology they call it the substitution theory that the old covenant has been substituted for the new covenant, but I think it's better to look at it as the completion. Yeah, they're the same reality, but now everything that the old was waiting for has come to fruition, and now even those men and women can see God, something that was never possible.
Fr. Andrew:
In thinking through the mind of Peter, james and John, who are on top of Mount Tabor with Jesus. Who would have, they like, had wanted to see right at this Mount Rushmore experience, like who are the great spiritual heroes of your past that you would like, think would be around the throne of God? Well for them. They would expect to see Moses and Elijah, certainly the ones that led the Israelites to the Promised Land before they called the people back to the law called repentance, and so they would expect to see them there, not carved into a rock face, but in this form.
Jordan:
Right like Mount Rushmore literally.
Fr. Andrew:
Yeah, right, you got it.
Jordan:
They were actual figures. Oh, absolutely yeah, they were there.
Fr. Chris:
And they loved it so much that they said isn't it great that we're here? We're gonna build tents for everyone. We're gonna stay and we don't want to leave this experience. And they fell prostrate on the ground and worshiped and Jesus touched them and said Rise up, but we can't stay here. The experience is to push us for the journey, because this isn't the end.
Fr. Andrew:
About being terrified as well that we had touched on before. They were terrified because it's been said throughout scripture that you cannot see the face of God and live. Even Moses himself only sees the backside of God at the burning mountain. He goes past him and just sees the backside of him. If you think to Elijah's own story, whenever he's in the cave and he hears finally, after all the consternation and rustling and noise, and he hears the quiet whisper, what does he do? Put his face to the ground really quick. Because they're terrified that if you see God, it's death Right, and that's what happens in just popular culture for people to understand.
Jordan:
In Indiana Jones the original the. Ark of the Covenant they open, that he tells Maryam to shut her eyes turn away, don't look, whereas all the others they look at it.
Fr. Andrew:
That's directly from scripture. But this is the beauty of God right, which is that looking upon God does not cause death, but repentance and turning back towards God actually gives life and we see glory in what we're actually made for. And so there's not this sense of being fearful of God. Rather, god comes to literally be our friend in Christ, to bring us back to right relationship and friendship with God.
Fr. Chris:
But that also demands of us that we have to be duly prepared to not only receive him but to be in contact with him. Right, because nothing. We see all this. We've been talking in the last few episodes about the laws of being clean. Right, and they're there for a reason because Jesus says blessed are the pure of heart. And so to be part of God and look upon him, we have to be clean, and that's why it's so critical that in our practice of the faith, that when we receive communion, we should be free from grave sin, because what happens, it's almost a greater sin that we would try to contact God. Going back to your image from Indiana Jones, those who are not prepared to receive die, and even in the Old Testament we see the priests if they're not duly prepared to enter the temple, they will die. And so it's that great mercy seat of God that we have to call upon and prepare to view Him.
Fr. Andrew:
We would always joke in seminary. It says in the Levitical Law that you have to wear specific things. And if you went into the Holy of Holies, one of the things that they would do for the High Priest is they couldn't go into the Holy of Holies themselves if the High Priest died because he did something wrong and they would try to do some kind of a military-muliturgical action. So they would tie bells on him as well as a rope around his leg and he'd go in and if they heard the bells stop, that meant hey, did something wrong, the guy's dead. And then they would drag him back out because they weren't allowed to go into there.
Fr. Andrew:
But one thing that we see in the Transfiguration as well is an indwelling of God with His people. So the Holy Spirit, as imaged by of course this is my son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him that's God, the Father, speaking. Of course Christ is there in His Transfigured form. And then what else is there? A cloud, we're told, which is always an image of the Holy Spirit Think about that leading the Israelites through the desert towards the Promised Land. The cloud that dwells in the temple. And so we have all of the three persons of the Trinity here present, but indwelling with us through a great gift of a tavernacle, in a way, like us becoming a tavernacle of God dwelling within us and with us, which is what we do whenever we receive Holy Communion in the Eucharist that we become a living tavernacle of the living God, who then goes with us into the world to sustain us on our journey, and I love that.
Fr. Chris:
Father touched on that image of bells because, as the priests of old were the bells on their vestments, today in the Eastern Catholic churches and in the Orthodox churches, all of their bishops have bells on their vestments. Because each time we enter into the sanctuary to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, we're back in that temple, in the Holy of Holies and even in our own Roman Latin tradition. When do we hear the bells? At the moment of consecration, at the moment of the elevations and at the consumption of the sacrifice, when the priest consumes the precious body and drinks from the chalice, the bell's ring to signify this great life of God that is with us. And really, every time we gather to offer Mass. It's a transfiguration for us, because we're gazing upon not only Jesus Christ himself in the Eucharist, but all of heaven, where we believe that the Communion of Saints is present. And what do we do? We fall to our knees and we worship, just like Peter, james and John did at Mount Tabor.
Fr. Andrew:
Where does Peter Jordan make himself out to be, like, you know, foot in the mouth again in this story? You remember, like whenever he says basically like hey, let's build some tents. Do you know why he does that? So it comes back to that sense of the Feast of Tabernacles or of Boos, that there was this idea that all of the Jewish people would come around the temple, the indwelling presence of God there in Jerusalem, and they'd build these little tents and they would dwell there for a week or a little bit longer and so with God, and it was this great feast. So it was Peter wanting to stay there longer, to be caught up in the moment.
Fr. Chris:
If you go to New York during this feast, when the Hasidic Jews are celebrating on all their balconies and fire escapes in the city, you'll see little tents set up because, they'll still follow that. But what's so important, where Jesus transforms that Feast of Booths is when he says that he had. St John tells us he came and pitched his tent among us. Because Jesus is the true Tabernacle, the true presence of God in the world, because he is God.
Fr. Andrew:
I love Peter though, because he's kind of like a little kid, who's like on vacation, who's like can't we just stay a little bit longer down?
Fr. Chris:
Oh, that's the worst feeling when you get home.
Fr. Andrew:
You're like, whenever you get settled in, you just want to stay there. This is paradise. It's great and but it's like what does Jesus say get up or going?
Fr. Chris:
down time to go. We never stay in the church right. The doors open back up after the bell rings and we go forth.
Jordan:
It's a good point if you could have a mount rush more of religious figures.
Fr. Andrew:
Who would you?
Jordan:
want to be there.
Fr. Andrew:
I have obscure saints that have things to do with my life, but most people would have no idea who they are.
Jordan:
They can look them up later the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Fr. Andrew:
I would definitely one there's just to talk to her and hear of all those things that she pondered and kept in her heart. I think that'd be very interesting. She's a lot to tell us still.
Fr. Chris:
Yeah, I'd say Saint Max meal and Colby for sure.
Jordan:
Can you give me a five-second log line of who that is a?
Fr. Chris:
priest arrested by the Nazis, put in Dosh witz, gave his life for the salvation of others.
Jordan:
Okay.
Fr. Chris:
That's the cliff notes version. Talk to.
Fr. Andrew:
Lazarus. Oh, he'd be great because he's an interesting character to write here. He died and then got resurrected. He might be a topic of.
Jordan:
One of our future episodes we might talk about to meet them yeah so in the gospel, jesus tells disciples not to share this story until after the resurrection. And we know they did because it is included in the gospels. So how do we share that encounter?
Fr. Chris:
It's important to note, like that whole idea of the messianic secret Is that not everyone is always prepared in the same way to receive the message of the messiah or salvation. So at this point Jesus recognizes that Peter, james and John are ready to see it and to To comprehend. He's hoping, which we see, that they imperfectly understand it. Um, but that's why so often we see things happen and Jesus is like keep it a secret, it doesn't need to come out yet, right, because we have to be prepared. And so even in spreading the faith today I'm not going to walk up to a stranger and talk about the, you know mystery of the trinity and the indwelling of the spirit within us we begin with basics. As father said before God loves us. We're made for love, we're made by love and we're made for love. That's what I always start out in the schools when I talk to the kids, because we have to begin there and then we can get into the great depths of what's happening.
Jordan:
Thanks for listening to the catholic accent podcast. Don't forget to follow, like and subscribe to our show.
Fr. Chris:
And that that concludes that concludes that episode oh well, it's been great to be transfigured with all of you.