We often want to "set up booths." When we feel good with God, in some "spiritually comfortable" setting, in a community, in a monastery, in the Church... We think it is very...
We often want to "set up booths." When we feel good with God, in some "spiritually comfortable" setting, in a community, in a monastery, in the Church... We think it is very proper and pious to want always to be here.
Little Therese of Lisieux wrote:
"To live by love is not to set up booths,
Even after climbing Mount Tabor:
It is to go toward Your voice that calls,
To look at the Cross without turning one's gaze away."
When we want to "set up booths," we want to stop, to get stuck in spiritual experiences that are pleasant to us, to keep them for ourselves. At times we need this; spiritual rest is necessary. Jesus took with Him onto the mountain those who would have to be with Him in the garden of Gethsemane. He wants us to go farther, so that we do not seek the experience of His presence, but always and everywhere live as if we were on Mount Tabor, even when we do not feel and do not see the light of Tabor. This light must be within us.
We may never again experience this joy of the Transfiguration, but it is enough for us to know what awaits us ahead, and Who awaits us on our path, at times heavy and thorny. But He walked a more difficult path, and He, our God, wants us to follow Him.
9
9:2 By themselves - That is, separate from the multitude: Apart - From the other apostles: and was transfigured - The Greek wordseems to refer to the form of God, and the form of a servant, {mentioned by St. Paul, Php 2:6-7} and may intimate, that theDivine rays, which the indwelling God let out on this occasion, made the glorious change from one of these forms into the other. Mat 17:1; Luk 9:28.
9:3 White as snow, such as no fuller can whiten - Such as could not be equalled either by nature or art.
9:4 Elijah - Whom they expected: Moses, whom they did not.
9:7 There came a (bright, luminous) cloud, overshadowing them - This seems to have been such a cloud of glory as accompaniedIsrael in the wilderness, which, as the Jewish writers observe, departed at the death of Moses. But it now appeared again, in honour of our Lord, as the great Prophet of the Church, who was prefigured by Moses. Hear ye him - Even preferably to Moses and Elijah.
9:12 Elijah verily coming first restoreth all things: and how it is written - That is, And he told them how it is written - As if he had said, Elijah's coming is not inconsistent with my suffering.He is come: yet I shall suffer. The first part of the verse answers their question concerning Elijah; the second refutes their error concerning the Messiah's continuing for ever.