On this second Sunday of Lent we are invited to climb the mountain of transfiguration. This episode, unlike those that will follow (the Samaritan woman, the man born blind and the resurrection of Lazarus), shows part of the mysteries of the life of Jesus. Here, however, he is not only the subject of a prodigious action but is the object too. In the transfiguration something takes place in him: “He was transfigured”, writes Matthew (17:2). Transfiguration, therefore, together with birth, baptism and later death and resurrection, attests how
in the life of Jesus there are events that reveal his profound identity, determine his course and clarify his mission. The purpose of these readings, then, in the time of Lent, is a precise pedagogical intention of the Church: namely to show how, through spiritual struggle (first Sunday, the temptations), the Christian reaches a transfigured existence. Gregory the Great states that the Transfiguration also aims to remove the scandal that will occur at the moment of Jesus’ Crucifixion, from the disciples’ minds.

But there is a third aspect that we want briefly to highlight. If it is true that transfiguration is a mystery, as we said before, we can also say that it synthesizes all the mysteries of salvation: it realizes the past (Sinai, the Law and the prophets), and anticipates the future (the resurrection, the parousia and the glory of the righteous). Christ appears as at the center of times and worlds and, as in the breaking of bread he will anticipate his death, so now in the transfiguration he anticipates his glorification. The invitation that resounds from Tabor is: keep on listening. Listening to Jesus, for the disciple of the Gospel, means seeing the announced glory prefigured in the Master, pointing to the end of time (cf. Mt 13:43); seeing also, together with the promise, the vision of the Son of man at the coming of His kingdom (cf. Mt 16:27-28).

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Santa Maria – Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey