Transfigured Atop Mount Thabor: On the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord

Today is the great Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Mount Thabor.

Dom Prosper Gueranger explained the meaning of this feast in The Liturgical Year and  how it, coming in a month replete with one feast after another (we have had already this month the Feast of Saint Peter's Chains and the Commemoration of the Holy Machabees, the Feast of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the Feast of the Finding of the Body of Saint Stephen, the Protomartyr, the Feast of Saint Dominic de Guzman, the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Snows), was instituted by Pope Calistus III in 1457:

“O God, who in the glorious transfiguration of thine only-begotten Son, didst confirm the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of the fathers: and who, in the voice which came from the bright cloud, didst in a wonderful manner fore-signify our adoption as sons: mercifully vouchsafe to make us fellow-heirs of that King of glory, and the sharers of his bliss.” Such is the formula which sums up the prayer of the Church and shows us her thoughts on this day of attestation and of hope.

We must first notice that the glorious transfiguration has already been twice brought before us on the sacred cycle, viz.: on the second Sunday of Lent, and on the preceding Saturday. What does this mean, but that the object of the present solemnity is not so much the historical fact already known, as the permanent mystery attached to it; not so much the personal favor bestowed on Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, as the accomplishment of the great message then entrusted to them for the Church? Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead. The Church, born from the open Side of the Man-God on the Cross, was not to behold him face to face on earth; after his Resurrection, when he had sealed his alliance with her in the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, it is on faith alone that her love was to be fed. But by the testimony which takes the place of sight, her lawful desires to know him were to be satisfied. Wherefore, for her sake, giving truce, one day of his mortal life, to the ordinary law of suffering and obscurity he had taken upon him for the world’s salvation, he allowed the glory which filled his blessed soul to transpire. The King of Jews and Gentiles revealed himself upon the mountain, where his calm splendor eclipsed forevermore the lightning of Sinai: the covenant of the eternal alliance was declared, not by the promulgation of a law of servitude engraven upon stone, but by the manifestation of the Lawgiver himself, coming as Bridegroom to reign in grace and beauty over hearts. Elias and Moses, representing the prophets and the Law whereby his coming was prepared, from their different starting points, met beside him, like faithful messengers reaching their destination; they did homage to the Masters of their now finished mission, and effaced themselves before Him at the voice of the Father: This is my beloved Son! Three witnesses the most trustworthy of all assisted at this solemn scene: the disciple of faith, the disciple of love, and that other son of thunder who was to be the first to seal with his blood both the faith and the love of an Apostle. By his order they kept religiously, as beseemed them, the secret of the King, until the day when the Church could be the first to receive it from their predestined lips.

But did this precious mystery take place on the 6th of August? More than one Doctor of sacred rites affirms that it did. At any rate, it was fitting to celebrate it in the month dedicated to eternal Wisdom. It is she the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror and image of God’s goodness, who, shedding grace upon the Son of man, made him on this day the most beautiful amongst all his brethren, and dictated more melodiously than ever to the inspired singer the accents of the Epithalamium: My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the king.

Seven months ago, the mystery was first announced by the gentle light of the Epiphany; but by the virtue of the mystical seven here revealed once more, the “beginnings of blessed hope” which we then celebrated as children with the Child Jesus, have grown together with him and with the Church; and the latter, established in unspeakable peace by the full growth which gives her to her Souse, calls upon all her children to grow like her by the contemplation of the Son of God, even to the measure of the perfect age of Christ. We understand then why the Liturgy of today repeats the formulas and chants of the glorious Theophany: Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee: it is because on the mountain together with our Lord the Bride also is glorified, having the glory of God.

In 1453 Byzantium, the capital of the Eastern empire, fell before the Turkish janissaries, and three years later Mahomet II invaded Belgrade on the very outskirts of the Western empire. It might have been expected that all Europe would hasten to the aid of the besieged fortress, for it this last dyke were to fall, Hungary, Austria and Italy would be overwhelmed and the peoples of the North and West would share the fate of the East, that life in death, that irremediable sterility of soil and intelligence which still holds captive the once brilliant Greece. But this imminent danger only resulted in deepening the breach in Christian unity, and the Christian nations were at the mercy of a few thousand infidels. Only the Papacy was true to itself in the midst of all this egoism and perfidy. Truly Catholic in its thoughts, its labours, its sufferings, as in its joys and triumphs, it took up the common cause which had been basely betrayed by kings and princes. The powerful were deaf to the Pope's appeals, but he turned to the humble and, trusting more in prayer to the God of armies than in military tactics, he sought for the deliverers of Christendom among the poor.

It was then that John Capistran, the saint of to-day [March 28], attained the consummation of his glory and his sanctity. At the head of a few poor men of good-will, unknown peasants gathered together by the Franciscan Friars, this 'poor man of Christ' undertook to defeat the strongest and best organized army of the century. On July 14, 1456, he broke through the Ottoman lines with John Hunyades, the only one of the Hungarian nobles who would accompany him, and revictualled Belgrade; and on July 22, feeling that he could no longer elude the defensive, he threw himself, to the stupefaction of Hunyades, on the enemy entrenchments. His troops were armed only with flails and pitchforks, and their only strategy was the name of Jesus. John had inherited this victorious battle-cry from his master, Bernardine of Siena. the Psalmist said: 'Some trust in chariots and some in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God.' This name, so holy and so terrible, proved once more the salvation of the people. At the end of that memorable day twenty-four thousand Turks lay dead on the field of battle; three hundred cannon and all the spoils of the infidels were in the hands of the Christians and, and Mahomet II was seeking a distant hiding-place for his shame. The news of this victory, so like that of Gedeon, reached Rome on August 6, and Pope Callistus III decreed that henceforth the Universal Church should keep a solemn commemoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord on that day, for it was with the soldiers of the Cross as with the heroes of Israel, 'they got not the possession of the land by their own sword: neither did their own arm save them, but thy right hand and thy arm and the light of thy countenance because thou wast pleased with them,' as with Thy beloved Son on Mount Thabor. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

The work of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is His work. We are but his foot-soldiers in the Army of Christ. Any victory in this life, including the victories that we win over the wiles of the tempter in our own lives, is the result of the graces that Our Lord won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. We have been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to Him and His Holy Church, not to serve as reflexive and uncritical servants of the lords of this world.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ took three of His Apostles, Saints Peter, James and John, up to the top of Mount Thabor, where He was transfigured before them in glory, showing them the same glory He had from all eternity with the Father, Who said, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him." Appearing with Our Lord were Moses and Elias. The three Apostles were permitted to experience the image of Our Lord's Transfiguration in order to provide them with a bit of consolation during His Passion and Death, that they might call to mind the vision of His radiant glory as all appeared in human terms to be have been lost with His Death on the wood of the Holy Cross. It is that very same transfigured glory that Our Lord showed forth as He manifested His Easter Victory over sin and death in the Resurrection.

It is no accident that Our Lord took the same three Apostles with Him as He suffered His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Just as Saints Peter, James and John fell down on the ground when they saw the image of Our Lord's transfigured glory on Mount Thabor, so would they fall fast asleep as the Divine Master demonstrated the depths of the horror afflicting His soul as He sweated droplets of His Most Precious Blood while contemplating all of the sins of all men until the end of time that would cause Him to undergo His fearful Passion and Death.

This incomparable feast day reminds us that Our Lord wants us to remember that there an empty tomb in Jerusalem because He got up and walked out of it, promising us that our own bodies will be transfigured in glory at the end of time if our souls persevere in states of Sanctifying Grace until the point of our dying breaths. And Our Lord wants us to remember that He will provide us a bit of consolation every now and then as we walk the rocky road that leads to the narrow gate of Life.

We must not look for the consolation. However, He will send us a bit of consolation in order to encourage us as we keep our hands on the plough in order to furrow the ground so as to bring forth a rich harvest of souls for the Catholic Church. Our daily crosses are ever with us. They are the means of our sanctification and salvation, given freely to His own Most Sacred Heart through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. If some bit of transfiguring joy comes our way now and then, thank God for it, but be ever ready to look at the Cross, without which it is impossible to know the glory of an unending Easter Sunday of joy in Paradise.

We are asked to bear the cross of humiliation and calumny and rejection and wordily hardship during this era of apostasy and betrayal by clinging only to true shepherds in the Catholic catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds.

The crosses of the present moment as the Church Militant on earth undergoes her Mystical Passion, Death and Burial have been perfectly fitted for her from all eternity by the very hand of God Himself, Who has willed from all eternity that we would be alive in the midst of this era of apostasy and betrayal. We must, therefore, lift high the Cross in our own daily lives, recognizing that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has work for us to do that only we can do as the consecrated slaves of His own Most Sacred Heart through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother. We do this work without seeking consolation, simply accepting that we will see the radiant glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity if we persevere in a state of Sanctifying Grace to the point of our dying breaths.

What is this work?

To sanctify our souls on a daily basis by assisting at the true offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered by true priests who are not "una cum" Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

To spend time on our knees in prayer before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament if this at all possible in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

To pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit as we attempt to fulfill Our Lady's Fatima Message in our own lives.

To be enrolled in the Brown Scapular and to keep its obligations faithfully.

To have our homes Enthroned to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

To keep the Nine First Fridays and the Five First Saturdays. To make a weekly Confession of our sins to a true bishop or a true priest.

To spend at least fifteen minutes a day reading a passage from Scripture and to make it a point to do some spiritual reading after making one's Nightly Examination of Conscience.

To pass out blessed Green Scapulars and Miraculous Medals and Rosaries (with Rosary instruction booklets) to those whom God's Holy Providence places into our lives each day.

To pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory (as many by name as possible) each day.

To pray for the eternal good of those with whom we are friendly and those who have rejected us and those who are the open enemies of the Catholic Faith.

To forgive all injuries readily as we hold no grudges at all against anyone for any reason whatsoever. (Why do so many traditional Catholics all across the vast spectrum of the eccleasiastical divide seem to have difficulty grapsing this concept and treating those they believe, perhaps erroneously, have "offended" them with contempt?)

To perform each of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

To defend the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

To accept whatever physical or emotional or spiritual sufferings that come our way as being perfectly fitted for us from all eternity, remembering that nothing we can endure in this life even comes close to equaling the horror that one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death as such a "least" Venial Sin caused Our Lady's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow.

To accept rejection and calumny and ostracism with equanimity and with joy as the price of discipleship, the price of fidelity in refusing to associate with the apostates and by refusing to concede for one moment that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is anything other than a diabolical ape of the Catholic Church.

Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., provided us with this cogent commentary on today's great feast in The Light of the World, Volume II:

"The exalted King of Glory, come let us adore Him." With these words the Invitatory of the Divine Office introduces today's feast. The Transfiguration of Christ is a feast which celebrates the exaltation of Christ the Lord. The patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, represented by Moses and Elias, give testimony on Tabor and confess Him to be the Messias predicted in the Old Testament. The voice of the Father is heard from heaving saying, "This is my beloved Son; . . . hear yet Him" (Gospel). Christ's transfiguration on Mount Tabor assures us of Hid divinity and confirms us in our faith and our hope.

We believe firmly in Jesus, the King of Glory, who will come again with power and glory to judge the living and the dead. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ (His second coming with great power]; but having been made eyewitnesses of His majesty [transfiguration]. For He received from god the Father honor and glory; this voice coming down to Him from the excellent glory: This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, her yet Him. And the voice we have heard brought from heaven when we were with Him in the holy mount" (Epistle). The glory in which Peter saw the transfigured Lord on the mountain, gives Peter and all of us the certainty that the Lord will later appear in His glory, and that even as man He is King of Glory. "Glory and wealth are in His house, and His justice remaineth forever and ever" (Offertory).

Although He was the Son of God, "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted Him and hath given Him a name which is above all names. That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, . . . in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2: 8-11). The prophets of the Old Testament also give testimony of Him (Acts 10: 43). We who see Him in His glory on Tabor through Peter "have the more firm prophetical word, whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts" (Epistle). We believe; we adore the King of Glory. "I speak my words to the King" (Gradual). My thoughts, my wishes, my time, my strength, my love, my sacrifices, all center on Him.

Christ's divinity is the source of our hope. "We look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory" (Phil. 3: 20-21). We have confidence that our body will be made like the body of the Lord, which was transfigured on Tabor. The liturgy reminds us, "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God.. . . . We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him" (I John 3" 1 f.). In the transfiguration of the Lord on Tabor we possess a visible image as well as a guarantee of our eventual transfiguration in body and soul. Through the transfiguration on Tabor, O Father, "Thou didst wonderfully foreshow the perfect adoption of sons by a voice coming down in a shining cloud" (Collect). These words of the Father, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Gospel), are spoken also to us who are joined to Christ through baptism. Because we are children, we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ, "the King of Glory, and sharers in this same glory" (Collect).

"Thou art beautiful above the sons of men; grace is poured abroad in Thy lips. My heart hath uttered a good word. I speak my works to the King. Alleljua, alleljua. He is the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror, and the image of His goodness" (Gradual).

"In this transfiguration it was indeed intended principally to take away from the hearts of the disciples the scandal of the cross, lest the degradation of His voluntary passion should shake the faith of those men to whom had been revealed the excellence of His hidden majesty" (St. Leo). In times when the kingdom of Satan displays its power and the kingdom of Christ is most hard pressed, the Church lifts up her eyes to Tabor to see the splendor of the hidden glory of God. "Thou alone are the Lord. Thou alone art most high," the King of Glory. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume II, B. Herder Book Company, Saint Louis Missouri, 1954, pp. 430-431.)

We must remember to lift our own eyes up to Mount Thabor as well in the midst of the terrible sufferings afflicting the Church Militant on earth and the the thus of the world in which we live at a time when evil is "good," falsehoods are "truth," and the supposed "pope" and his "bishops" unmask themselves every as bold antitheses of Holy Mother Church's Apostles, Martyrs, Fathers, Doctors and Confessors and Virgins. The Church Militant on earth is undergoing her mystical burial now, which is why we need to look at Mount Thabor today, the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The readings for today's Matins in the Divine Office today include reflections by Pope Saint Saint Leo the Great and Saint John Chyrsostom:

The Lord taketh chosen witnesses, and in their presence, revealeth His glory. That form of body which He had in common with other men, He so transfigured with light, that His Face did shine as the sun, and His raiment became exceeding white as snow. Of this metamorphosis the chief work was to remove from the hearts of the disciples the stumbling at the Cross. Before their eyes was unveiled the splendour of His hidden majesty, that the lowliness of His freely-chosen suffering might not confound their faith. But none the less was there here laid by the Providence of God a solid foundation for the hope of the Holy Church, whereby the whole body of Christ should know with what a change it is yet to be honoured. The members of that body whose Head hath already been transfigured in light may promise themselves a share in His glory.

For the strengthening the Apostles and bringing them forward into all knowledge, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias that is, the Law and the Prophets talking with Him. Before five witnesses did His glorification take place, as though to fulfill that which is written: At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. Deut. xix. 15. What can be more certain, what can be better attested than this matter, which is proclaimed by the trumpets of both the Old and the New Testaments, and concerning which the witness of ancient testimony uniteth with the teaching of the Gospel The pages of either Covenant strengthen one another, and the brightness of open glory maketh manifest and distinct Him Whom the former prophecies had promised under the veil of mysteries.

The unveiling of such mysteries roused the mind of the Apostle Peter to an outburst of longing for the things eternal, which despised and disdained the things worldly and earthly overflowing with gladness at the vision, he yearned to dwell with Jesus there, where the revelation of His glory had rejoiced him. And so he said Master, it is good for us to be here if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. To this proposal the Lord answered nothing, this signifying, that what Peter wished was not wrong, but out of place, since the world could not be saved but by the death of Christ. And the Lord's example was to call the faith of believers to this, that albeit we are behoven to have no doubts concerning the promise of eternal blessedness, yet we are to understand that, amid the trials of this life, we are to seek for endurance before glory. (Pope Saint Leo Great, Matins, The Divine Office, August 6.)

This is pretty clear, is it not?

There is no means to save the world other than through the death of Our Divine Redeemer, Christ the King. There is no salvation in politics. A country whose citizenry is distracted by bread and circuses and concerned principally about the money, the money, and the money, and that has been conditioned to accept relativism, religious indifferentism, and statism as irreversible facts of life must look to the Divine Redeemer as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Moreover, we in a situation today that is made more evil by the fact that the "pope" of the counterfeit church of conciliaism and his "bishops" hare the willing stooges and enablers of the lords of Modernity, who are ever desirous of intimidating us into silence about First and Last Things and to accept a slavery to their edicts as the only acceptable definition of "good citizenship." This is why what Pope Leo the Great wrote in the middle of the Fifth Century applies especially to our times as we must seek for endurance amid the trials of this life before glory.

Saint John Chrysostom had written of these truths less than one hundred years before the tenure of Pope Saint Leo the Great:

Since the Lord had spoken much concerning dangers, much concerning His Own sufferings, much concerning death, and the killing of His disciples, and had laid upon them many hard and grievous things, and since all these were in this present life, and already hanging over them, whereas the good things were matter for hope and waiting as, for example, that whosoever should lose his life for His sake should find it, for that the Son of Man should come in the glory of His Father, and reward every man according to his works. Matth. xvi. 25, 27. Therefore, to assure them by their own eyes, and show them what the glory is wherein He will come, He manifested and unveiled it to them, as far as in this life they were able to grasp it, lest they and especially Peter should grieve over their own deaths, or the death of their Lord.

Behold what He doth, when He treateth of heaven and hell. Where He saith Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. And again He shall reward every man according to his works in these words He pointeth at heaven and hell. But although He speaketh concerning both, He giveth a glimpse of heaven only and not of hell. To see hell would have profited the brutish and stupid, but His disciples were upright and clear-sighted, and therefore for them it was enough to be strengthened by the better things. This was what suited Him the best. Yet He left not the other altogether undone. Sometimes He set the horrors of hell, as it were, before the eyes, as for instance in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and that of him who was fain to wring the hundred pence from his fellow-servant.  (Saint John Chrysostom, Matins, The Divine Office.)

We desire to be transfigured in glory for all eternity in Heaven. There is only one way to get to the Heavenly Mount Thabor, and that is by climbing our way to Mount Calvary each day of our lives, especially by making sure that we make all sacrifices necessary to move our families to those safe shelters in the catacombs where true bishops and true priests who are not "una cum" apostasy and betrayal will feed our souls with the true Sacraments as they provide us with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith that are never subject to negotiation with heretics and schismatics, never capable of being understood or expressed in any other way that they have been understood and expressed throughout the ages.

Our Lady desires to lead us to the Heavenly Mount Thabor. Are we willing to stand next to her each day at Mount Calvary in order to be in Heaven with her for all eternity?

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint James the Greater, pray for.

Pope Saint Sixtus, Saints Felicissimus and Agapitus, pray for us.