Sunday Meditation: Listen to Jesus

On the Second Sunday in Lent of Year A, we have Matthew’s Transfiguration scene.  Three years ago I embedded Dr. Brant Pitre’s explanation of Matthew’s Transfiguration, and it’s well worth going back to watch that.  Dr. Pitre explains the parallels between this scene and that of Moses going up Mt. Sinai in Exodus chapters 24 and 34.  The point of Matthew’s Transfiguration is that Jesus is the new and greater Moses.

But what I find most fascinating that I don’t think I heard any of the homilists I surveyed mention is that this scene at the beginning of chapter 17 comes right after the events of chapter 16.  What are the events of Matthew 16 that resonate here in 17?  At the beginning of Matthew 16 Jesus is asked by the Pharisees and Sadducees to show them a sign.  Jesus refuses and even says, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah” (Mt 16:4).  Later in the chapter Jesus asks the disciples who they think He is, and Peter gives his famous, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16).  Still later in the chapter, after Jesus explains He must die and be resurrected, He adds, “For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory” (Mt 16:27).  So in Matthew 16, He tells the Jewish critics that no sign will be given, but He explains exactly to the apostles what will come.  But do they really understand it?  Not if you read carefully.  They need that sign, and in His goodness Jesus gives the three apostles such a sign in the Transfiguration.

 

 

 

Here is today’s Gospel reading.

 

 

Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother,

and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them;

his face shone like the sun

and his clothes became white as light.

And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,

conversing with him.

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.”

While he was still speaking, behold,

a bright cloud cast a shadow over them,

then from the cloud came a voice that said,

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased;

listen to him.”

When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate

and were very much afraid.

But Jesus came and touched them, saying,

“Rise, and do not be afraid.”

And when the disciples raised their eyes,

they saw no one else but Jesus alone.

 

As they were coming down from the mountain,

Jesus charged them,

“Do not tell the vision to anyone

until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

~Mt: 17: 1-9

 

 

Fr. Terrance Chartier of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate gives a fine homily where he alludes to the theology taught from Dr. Pitre’s video.

 

Fr. Terrance:

“The last lesson from Mount Taber today is probably the first and most important lesson. It's the fact that Jesus is the new Moses. He's actually our Moses. Just as Moses led God's people out of slavery to the promised land, so to Jesus, our Moses, leads us out of sin and out of the difficulties of life to bring us to a heavenly promised land…And when Moses went up Mount Sinai, it was said that when he came down, his face shone with the glory of having been in the presence of God. Exodus 32:34:29.  So his face, Moses's face reflected the glory of God when whom he had encountered.  What does it say in the gospel today?  Jesus goes up the mountain. Matthew tells us his face shone like the sun. Matthew 17:2, it shines like the sun with its own light.”

 

In the Transfiguration, Jesus opened up His humanity to reveal His glory.

 

The Catholic Truth Society, a British evangelist organization, is providing Lenten retreat talks from St. John Henry Newman’s sermons, and they provide an interesting one on this week’s Gospel reading.

 

Up above I brought the Transfiguration scene into context with the prior events of Matthew 16.  Fr. George Bowen brings out Newman’s preaching on how the passage following the Transfiguration shows the dichotomy of the transcendence and glory of the Transfiguration up the mountain with the grief, pain, and confusion of the earthly world down the mountain.  That scene is the one with the epileptic boy where the boy’s father asks Jesus, “Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water.  I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him” (Mt 17:15-16).

The contrast between the two scenes is striking.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”

 

Here is a lovely hymn I have never heard of, “Transfiguration,” written by Brian Wren (lyrics) and Ricky Manalo (music).

 

 

Praise and glory, praise and glory,

praise and glory to our Lord!

Let us, if we dare to speak,

join the saints and angels praising.

 

Art: The Sistine Madonna by Raphael

The August 2015 issue of Magnificat magazine featured this painting as its monthly art essay and I was really taken in.  This wonderful painting was painted for the Benedictine Monastery of San Sisto, and not the Sistine Chapel as its name might suggest.  It is sometimes referred to as the Madonna Standing on Clouds with Saints Sixtus and Barbara, and personally I think that’s a better name. 

There is so much to point out in this painting.  The structure is circular the Madonna and Child at the top of the circle, Pope Saint Sixtus IV looking upward, Saint Barbara looking downward, and the two icon angels looking back up to complete the circle.  The color scheme is interesting.  The yellows, greens, and browns contrast nicely with the Blessed Virgin’s blue gives the Holy Mother a position of prominence. 

There is an interesting contrast of the neat and tidy Saint Barbara with the disheveled Saint Sixtus.  The Blessed Virgin also seems to be mostly neat, except for her windblown garments, which connects her with the other female figure.  The hair on the Christ child and on the two angels are tousled and disarrayed, connecting them with the male figure.  What that means, I’m not sure.

The choice of the supporting figures is also interesting.  We know why Pope Saint Sixtus IV was chosen.  The painting was commissioned by his nephew and wanted to honor his uncle.  Sixtus is characterized as frail and human, which further connects him to the human child.  But why Saint Barbara?  I’m not sure.  We know her to be both a virgin and martyr.  Her elegance connects her with the Virgin, but her stateliness seems to surpass that of the Virgin.  The cute angels, fleshy and human-like, at the bottom are also connected with the incarnate Christ child, but their whimsical expressions seem to miss the significance and the gravity of the moment.

The drama is also interesting.  The Virgin and child seem to come from behind a green veil (suggesting the earth, perhaps) and walk down as if from heaven.  Sixtus is pointing out of the canvas to the viewer, pointing the Christ child to the beholder of the painting.  The infant Jesus clearly has an expression of being vexed.  The Magnificat essay, by a Fr. Michael Morris, O.P., professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at Berkley, CA, explains the finger point and the Holy Child’s expression with this:

Recent scholarship has discovered that inside the basilica the painting was designed to hang opposite a scene of the crucifixion.  Thus the look of fear that envelops the infant Jesus reveals a natural human response to the sight of pain and death.

I wonder if that is correct.  Would Raphael paint a scene considering that another painting sitting opposite would explain the significance of his painting?  What if one of the paintings were to be relocated, as has his Sistine Madonna was relocated to Dresden, Germany in the 18^th century?  Or what if someone decided to rearrange the chapel?  The significance of the pointing hand would be lost, and Raphael certainly would have considered that possibility.  Here’s what I think.  The earthly veil has been opened and we have made our way up toward heaven to face our eternal fate.  Suddenly you come upon the Virgin and child who have come to meet you, and your impulse is to join both Sixtus and Barbara in kneeling before the Lord.  I think Sixtus is pointing to us the observer, and Christ looks on in judgement. 

What do you think?