Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord - Fr. Leo
The Spiritual life is lived on two planes if you will. One is the marvelous earthly plane. It is the experience of living in a body as part of life on earth. This is most natural for us as we trod upon the earth and let reason teach and guide us on how to survive and thrive as physical beings. This plane is finite for us. We do not live forever and that reality presses itself on us as we get older. The old man who is out paced by the strong young man on the path understands the young man in all of his strength. But the young man who has not experienced the effects of age, may be tempted to be impatient with his elder for he knows not the experience of muscle loss and pain.
The other plane we all inhabit is a spiritual plane. In our gospel, this plane is depicted as being above all others. Something experienced at the top of a mountain where the power of God’s transforming spirit is witnessed and felt. It’s real peak is in the heart of every person where God’s timeless being dwells and directs our becoming in time. The reality of this plane is the subject of the mystic.
It is this second plane that gives meaning to the first and while we are here on earth, is inseparable from it. Thus, even nature in its beauty can reflect to us the granger of God. Beauty, truth and love are not physical possessions, but realities we know with our heart are real. When we listen to music, we don’t see it do we? But it is real. So too, what our earthy senses can not pick up on does not invalidate what the soul beyond time, reason and sense can experience.
This is the experience of the disciples who witness Jesus’ self manifestation in what we call the transfiguration on the mount. To the disciples, this “other worldly” experience was frightening. So different was it from “normal” life. Yet for us who can go through the door the mystics have opened, we can see that these two worlds of being, and the other of becoming, are one.
It is our experiences of the presence of God, however communicated to us, that can open our inner soul, to the wonder and power of God who comes through all things and is in all things. Especially our souls. Deep down, when we experience a share in God’s divinity we are over come with God’s light and blinded for a bit by a new way of seeing. We move back and forth between the ‘mountain’ top and plane of living every day life. The difference is that we now experience the extraordinary in the ordinary in a way that can never be denied or changed.
In this new light, we see that we have a timeless soul that will out last our earthy life and return home to God just as Jesus was raised up and returned to the Father. Our transfiguration is in process now and will bring us in the end to a oneness with the One in whom we live, and move, and have our being. We will then share in the fullness of being; God’s divinity.