Wednesday, 7 August 2019

CHRIST THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECIES

20190806 CHRIST THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECIES


06 AUGUST, 2019, Tuesday, Transfiguration of the Lord
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour: White.


First reading
Daniel 7:9-10,13-14 ©

His robe was white as snow
As I watched:
Thrones were set in place
and one of great age took his seat.
His robe was white as snow,
the hair of his head as pure as wool.
His throne was a blaze of flames,
its wheels were a burning fire.
A stream of fire poured out,
issuing from his presence.
A thousand thousand waited on him,
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
A court was held
and the books were opened.
I gazed into the visions of the night.
And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven,
one like a son of man.
He came to the one of great age
and was led into his presence.
On him was conferred sovereignty,
glory and kingship,
and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants.
His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty
which shall never pass away,
nor will his empire ever be destroyed.


Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 96(97):1-2,5-6,9 ©
The Lord is king, most high above all the earth.
The Lord is king, let earth rejoice,
  let all the coastlands be glad.
Cloud and darkness are his raiment;
  his throne, justice and right.
The Lord is king, most high above all the earth.
The mountains melt like wax
  before the Lord of all the earth.
The skies proclaim his justice;
  all peoples see his glory.
The Lord is king, most high above all the earth.
For you indeed are the Lord
  most high above all the earth,
  exalted far above all spirits.
The Lord is king, most high above all the earth.


When a Feast of the Lord falls on a weekday, there is no reading after the Psalm and before the Gospel.


Gospel Acclamation
Mt17:5
Alleluia, alleluia!
This is my Son, the Beloved:
he enjoys my favour.
Listen to him.
Alleluia!


Gospel
Luke 9:28-36 ©

Jesus is transfigured before them
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning. Suddenly there were two men there talking to him; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep, but they kept awake and saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As these were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ – He did not know what he was saying. As he spoke, a cloud came and covered them with shadow; and when they went into the cloud the disciples were afraid. And a voice came from the cloud saying, ‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’ And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. The disciples kept silence and, at that time, told no one what they had seen.

CHRIST THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECIES


SCRIPTURE READINGS: [  DN 7:9-1013-14; OR  PT 1:16-19; LK 9:28-36 ]
When sufferings come our way, it is difficult to accept.  This is particularly true when we cannot understand the meaning of our suffering, or at least the good that could come out of it.  We wonder what we have done wrong to deserve such suffering.  Our faith is shaken in God’s love for us.   We begin to doubt and our faith is weakened.  Then, through prayers, reading and meditating on the Word of God, listening to the preaching of the Word of God through talks and seminars, and through friends, we come to understand deeper the meaning of the difficult events in our lives.  When we begin to appreciate the wisdom of God’s plan for us, and that He often writes straight in crooked lines, bringing good out of evil, we find closure and experience peace, freedom and liberation. 
It is within this context that today’s feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated.  It is to give us hope, confidence and faith in Christ as our Savior, and the One who was prophesied in the Old Testament.  He is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament prophets as Peter wrote, “So we have confirmation of what was said in prophecies; and you will be right to depend on prophecy and take it as a lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds.”   This was what the Lord told the apostles after His resurrection as well, “‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.”  (Lk 24:25-27)  Indeed, in the Transfiguration experience, the sighting of “Moses and Elijah appearing in glory” speaking to the Lord, symbolizes that Jesus is the epitome and fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets because Moses was seen as a Law-Giver in the Old Testament, and Elijah, the greatest of all prophets.  That was why Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount declared, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”  (Mt 5:17f)
This truth is confirmed in the first reading taken from the Book of Daniel when he saw, “coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man. He came to the one of great age and was led into his presence. On him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship, and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants. His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away, nor will his empire ever be destroyed.”  In Jesus, the Kingdom of God is established in its finality by His passion, death and resurrection.  By His death and resurrection, Jesus is made King and Lord of the universe.  Jesus had to go through the passion of the Cross to face death for us in order to overcome eternal death.  This was what St Paul wrote, “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.  But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.  Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (2 Cor 15:21-26)
Why did Jesus reveal His glory to His inner circle of disciples?  It was necessary to anticipate them so that they would be able to stand firm in their faith and understand more fully the meaning of His passion, death and resurrection.  Just before this Transfiguration Event, we have Jesus feeding the Five Thousand, signifying that Jesus is the New Moses giving out the manna in the desert.  Then St Peter made the confession of faith in Christ as the Messiah of God.  This was followed immediately by the first passion prophecy, of which we were told that Peter remonstrated against such bad news foretold by the Lord.  He and the rest of the apostles could not accept the scandal of the cross.  We are just like the apostles as well when we cannot accept the crosses in our lives even though Jesus reminded us repeatedly, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  (Cf Lk 9:23f; cf Lk 9:10-21)  It is within this context that the Lord wanted to give the apostles assurance that His death is not a disaster but the wisdom of His Father’s plan to save humanity.
We, too, have received this assurance from our Lord in various ways in our lives. When we reflect on the events of our lives and how God has in His providence seen us through, these were the years when the Lord assured us that in our suffering, we are never defeated.  As St Paul himself who suffered for our Lord recounted, “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.”  (2 Cor 4:7-11)
Some of us have even been blessed with a deep encounter with the Lord through visions, miracles, healings, or simply through contemplation and in the silence of our hearts.  We have our special moments with the Lord, some more radical than others.  But if we open our eyes and our hearts, we know the Lord is reaching out to us in different ways, according to our capacity, our needs and in His time.  Regardless, none of us can say that we never had a God-Experience.  If we think we have not, it is not because there wasn’t any but because we were asleep, like the apostles at the Mountain when the Lord revealed Himself.
However, it is more than just having a God-encounter experience.  We cannot be clinging on to the experience all the time.  This was what Peter sought to do.  He said to the Lord, “Master, it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’. – He did not know what he was saying.”  Like them, many of us want to cling to our sentimental experiences of the past and wallow in the nostalgia. But faith is not some sentimental and emotional experience. It is about living out the life of Christ.  That was why when Peter proposed some monument to capture that experience, “a cloud came and covered them with shadow; and when they went into the cloud the disciples were afraid. And a voice came from the cloud saying, ‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’ And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.”
Indeed, the key reason for the God-experience is so that we can live the life of Jesus and bring about our own moral conversion and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the world.  This is what Vatican II says, “For after we have obeyed the Lord, and in His Spirit nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished and transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father: ‘a kingdom eternal and universal, a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.’  On this earth that Kingdom is already present in mystery. When the Lord returns it will be brought into full flower.  (Gaudium et spes, 39)
So what remains after the Christ-encounter is to continue to hear the Word of God, keep silence in contemplation so that we will always be enriched, enlightened as to how we should live our lives in the consciousness of God’s presence.  This was what we read, “The disciples kept silence and, at that time, told no one what they had seen.”  They did not tell anyone because they needed to contemplate on what the event meant for them.  Following Jesus, this is what we need to do; hear the Word of God, strengthen our faith in Christ as the Messiah and our Saviour, and then proclaim Him through our lives and words that He is the One who set us free from sin. “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.'”  (Lk 24:45-49)


Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved


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