Christ’s transfiguration was their transformation — and it is ours

Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.

By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor

A reflection on the daily readings, for Saturday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, by Father Perry.

+ People who collect things usually have, among their many things at least, one very special cache of items that are the best of the best — the pristine, the rarest of the rare, the top of the line, the indisputable finest, the cream of the crop.

Today in the scriptures, two such people are mentioned — Enoch and Elijah, apparently the only two figures of the Old Testament reputed to have been taken directly up into heaven.

They could be said to be not in the “Hall of Fame,” but rather in the “Hall of Faith!”

And both Enoch and Elijah were clearly men of faith who trusted completely in God and reaped the many blessings that come from living in faith, growing in faith and realizing what they hoped for.

For the list of people in our first reading who believed and walked always in faith, they were deemed righteous and blessed, and walked always in harmony with God.

God was said to be pleased with them all!

+ Jesus, then, took his disciples up a high mountain where he was transfigured before their eyes.

They met Moses and Elijah. They heard a thunderous voice of God declaring that Jesus was his own Son and was to be listed to.

Of course, it was all very mysterious.

They had visions — they were terrified, they heard voices, they looked around suddenly finding no one but Jesus.

It was all very mysterious, indeed.

But then Jesus did what he so often did — he told them what it all meant; he led them to begin to see the great mystery of the cross that was to come.

He led them to discover — long, long before it would come to pass — their own identification with the cross. He was able to be the voice of the voice of God that had thunderously proclaimed Jesus the Christ and his Son and searingly called all to listen to him.

Those disciples got to see and to hear and to discover in their heart and their being the greatest beginnings of profound faith in the Lord Jesus.

The transfiguration was their transformation.

And it is ours.

We, too, are called to listen to him, for it is in that listening that we will be led along the same pathways of faith; and our hopes, too, will be realized in Christ.

Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.