What would a transfigured world look like?

Let’s talk about you for a moment.  The “glory of you” is everything and anything that is truly you – you the way you were created to be.  We don’t need to dwell on those other bits of you – those bits that emerge when everything goes wrong all at the same time and you step in a regurgitated fur ball (that’s how it goes in the Smith house) – those bits aren’t the “glory of you,” they’re actually the absence of you (when the true you is absent all that is left are the shabby bits).    

The true you is glorious – every bit of you.  Radiant.  Wonderful to behold.

Christ’s Transfiguration reveals the glory of God – which is to say, the presence of God, the reality of God, the manifestation of God.  What God “looks” like. 

As has been said (by St. Augustine among others) the true miracle of the Transfiguration isn’t the revelation of Christ’s divinity, it’s how He was able to conceal it the rest of His time on earth.  The Transfiguration revealed the Glory of God that was concealed in the wrapping of “ordinary humanity.”

So, what would a “transfigured world” be like?  What would the world look like if liberated from the concealments of plague and war and death and sorrow and pettiness and sin and strife?   Here are some likely qualities:

• People of all stripes standing side-by-side in peace.
• Breaking bread together.
• Giving the best of themselves to their state in life and the tasks allotted to them.
• A world filled with beautiful images, music, and speech.
• Everyone of similar mind in worshiping God with one voice.
• God making Himself present among them.

Where this is leading, as you probably surmise, is that these qualities, and many more, are meant to be present in every Liturgy – at least, the better we celebrate the Liturgy, the closer we draw to that ideal (fortunately for us, the last point of “God making Himself present among us” is a certitude at every Mass, regardless of how well we do or don’t participate).

Heaven is literally made manifest at each Sacrifice of the Mass.  As put by St. Peter Damian - "the Holy Mass... cannot be celebrated without the whole Church being associated with it and being mystically present."  The “whole Church” isn’t just the earthly Church, but also the Heavenly Church - the Church Triumphant – which is to say, God and the Angels and Saints.

And we are called to bring that heavenly experience out into all aspects of worldly life.  As the Catechism puts it, “the word ‘liturgy’ refers not only to the celebration of divine worship but also to the proclamation of the Gospel and to active charity.” (CCC 1070)

Much of contemporary Liturgy may not “feel” like heaven on earth – but it is meant to (in the postscript we repeat one of our often-used anecdotes). 

What falls to each of us is the work (the Greek word for work is “liturgy”) of attending Mass well – of bringing our own personal glory to the celebration.  When we do that as a community of believers, we experience the sanctuary transfigured into a reflection of heaven on earth.

Sabbath blessings to you –

Steve and Karen Smith

Interior Life

Postscript –  The Power of Sacred Liturgy well Celebrated

A popular historical anecdote is a report given to Prince Vladimir of Kiev (a region suddenly well-known to all of us).  Prince Vladimir acknowledged the pagan gods of his region, but at the end of the 10^th century, he sent emissaries to investigate the religions of the surrounding lands.  They found all to be unimpressive save the Greeks – who at that time were celebrating the Catholic Mass of St. John Chrysostom.  The beauty of that liturgy eventually led to the conversion and baptism of Vladimir.

Here is how the liturgy was first reported to him:

“Then we went to Greece, and the Greeks (including the Emperor himself) led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty.”

That is the power of liturgy well-celebrated.