“The Transfiguration of the Lord is an exhortation for each of us to cleanse and transform our lives because He promises those pure in heart that they will see God,” said the Patriarchal Auxiliary Bishop Varlaam of Ploiești on Tuesday.
“The Hesychast Fathers, the great ascetics of Egypt, considered that the purpose of Christian life is the purification of the heart and the vision of divine grace, the light unseen by natural eyes, by ordinary eyes.”
“This transformation is necessary because Christ the Lord, through His Incarnation, makes all things new, as Saint John the Evangelist says in the Book of Revelation. Christ promises that at the end of history, He will create a new heaven and a new earth for the righteous, and Saint Paul the Apostle says that all people will change at the Resurrection, both those who have died and those who will be found alive at the end of the world,” the bishop recalled.
“Christ always demands this transformation of us, and God the Father, in today’s Gospel, commands us to listen to Him, to heed precisely these exhortations to change ourselves, to change our thoughts, our words, our lifestyle, and our way of behaving with others.”
“The feast today was called years ago by the Venerable Father Sofian, the Abbot of St Anthimos Monastery—recently canonized as a great venerable, a great teacher of prayer, and a Hesychast father—as a feast of light,” added Bishop Varlaam of Ploiești.
“What is this light on Mount Tabor, revealed in the Person of Christ, Who shone like the sun, in His garments white as light and in the bright cloud that overshadowed the disciples? It is the unapproachable light in which God dwells. It is the glory of the Most Holy Trinity.”
“The disciples were deemed worthy on Tabor to behold with their physical eyes this unending light, which is the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, the glory of the Resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the glory of Christ’s Ascension in glory from earth unto the right hand of the Father, and the glory of the coming Kingdom, or the glory of the Second Coming,” emphasized the Patriarchal Auxiliary Bishop.
“At every Vespers, when we hear Psalm 104, we are reminded again of the words: You are clothed with honor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a garment. Christ, who is Light from Light and true God from true God, becoming Man, covered this glory, lest He terrify the earthly beings for whose salvation He became Man.”
“You are radiant with light”
But, at His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, “His entire human nature, taken from the Virgin Mary, was transfigured, shining like the sun,” the Bishop further explained.
“This light did not come from outside, did not come from the sun as the illuminator of the day, but from His divine Being, united with the human nature taken from the Mother of God.”
In this regard, the bishop recalled a verse from Psalm 76: You are radiant with light, more majestic than mountains rich with game, and noted that the Prophet Isaiah, eight centuries earlier, presented the Birth of Christ as a light for the nations dwelling in the darkness of ignorance of God.
“The Holy Fathers say that the pillar of light that guided the Jewish people through the desert to the Promised Land is a prefiguration of the Saviour Jesus Christ, Who leads each of us through the desert of this world to the promised land for us, which is the new earth, the Kingdom of Heaven,” the Bishop added.
Bishop Varlaam of Ploiești celebrated the Divine Liturgy on Tuesday at the Patriarchal Cathedral on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Photography courtesy of Basilica.ro Files / Raluca Ene
Source: basilica.ro
