Sermon for the Day of the Transfiguration of the Lord (14)

And He was transfigured before them (His disciples), and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light (Mt 17:2).

Thus the Lord was transfigured, according to His humanity, on Tabor. And by this we are given to know that He can, in a wondrous manner, transfigure and enlighten us too, our nature darkened by sin and worldly passions, our soul and our body—as indeed He does transfigure, transform, and enlighten them. There is no need to go far for examples. They happen every day with every believing Christian who prays and sincerely repents. Let me ask each one of you: tell me, what happens to you, when, burdened by some sin, you come, say, to this very temple, with sincere contrition and fervent prayer to God and His most pure Mother? Or when some heavy sorrow and anguish weighs on you, and you pray to the Lord with tears that He would lighten it, dispel it, drive it away? Have you not noticed, soon after, a great change in your own soul? You repented sincerely of your sin, condemned yourself, reproached yourself, looked soberly at your unworthy thoughts, feelings, and deeds, gave your word to change—and your sin is forgiven you, you have become calm; there is light and freedom in your soul, stillness and grace. And if you sorrowed and grieved deeply over something, and set forth your sorrows and troubles before God, or before the Mother of God, the joy of all who sorrow, in submission to the will of God—tell me, did you not soon feel a change in your soul then too? Peace and quiet tenderness settled into your soul, with hope in the fatherly providence of God, and you went away from your prayer comforted, encouraged. This, then, is a transfiguration that occurs in each of us too—that is, from sincere, earnest prayer we are wondrously transfigured for the better; we become calm, and sober from the sins that intoxicate us—truly, sins, whatever ones you take, make us drunk—and we feel a revulsion toward sin, and we leave off sin, and we feel an inclination toward virtue, and we draw nearer to God. But apart from this, cunning sin would altogether estrange us from God, if we did not pray, did not repent, did not undergo sorrows. But we, brothers, are people of little faith, weak both in prayer and in the labors of virtue, and so in us this spiritual change, this inward transfiguration, is not so noticeable, not so bright and glorious, as it was in the holy servants of God. In them the grace of God wrought a wondrous transfiguration, renewal, illumination. They were men subject to the same passions as we are, but see what the grace of God made of them, through their faith and the ardor of their love for God, through the mortification in them of everything fleshly and sinful: from sinful men they became, as it were, holy angels; from weak, strong by the grace of God; from lowly, glorious; and many, from vessels stinking with every sin, from vessels of the devil, became vessels wholly fragrant with the grace of God and with every virtue. Such is the miracle of transfiguration that the grace of God works in men. And this is only the beginnings, only a faint shadow of that glorious transfiguration which the Lord will accomplish upon those who love Him, at His second, dread coming, when He will pronounce the final judgment upon the world: then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (Mt 13:43). It is this transfiguration, this glory, that I desire and pray to the Lord for all of you, my brothers, on this feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Only, in closing my brief sermon, I desire, first for myself and then for all of you, to be transfigured in soul, namely: to exchange self-love and love of the world for love of God, love of pleasure and love of money for brotherly love and mercy, hostility for love, cruelty for meekness, pride for humility, envy for goodwill, intemperance for self-restraint, foul and idle talk for good and God-glorifying speech, vanity for beneficence, uncleanness for holiness. Amen.