All year we have been reflecting on the theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ which Pope Francis proposed for this Jubilee Year, 2025. The feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord lends itself most gloriously to this theme as the Lord shows us his radiant face and form, even his clothes dazzling bright, as the hope of the glory of the Resurrection which all the baptized are destined to share.
Numerous saints and holy people have had glimpses of this radiance – for example, Thomas Merton on an ordinary city street and Caryll Houselander on an underground train during the Second World War, both suddenly seeing everybody around them shining like the sun. A businessman who had traversed the forest to meet the holy hermit Seraphim sat on a log with snowflakes whirling round them conversing about the Holy Spirit. He was amazed to see the glory of God shining through Seraphim who assured him that he too was shining in exactly the same way.
Each one of us ordinary people is endowed with a unique spark which, hopefully, will be fanned into flame and will help to set the world alight with the fire of love.
On August 6, 1945, the explosion of the atomic bomb provided a grotesque parody of the Transfiguration – the destructive fire it unleashed led to the deaths of millions and the horrendous after-effects are still with us. The atom, of course, is tiny – the very word has become a synonym for minute size – which leads to reflection on the power of little things. We are all familiar with the homely saying ‘many a mickle makes a muckle’.
It gives great grounds for hope that each of us, no matter how humble or obscure, can make a huge difference to the world by small acts of kindness, a smile, a word of encouragement, a joke. We are faced with enormous problems such as global warming, but even here each one of us can play a small part by repairing rather than throwing away, by re-cycling, not wasting food or water, even taking care of our own health. This is the reality that our Lord has placed us in: this is our daily invitation.
The most precious gift any of us has to give another human being is our attention. This brings us back to the account of the Transfiguration when the voice from Heaven directed the disciples to LISTEN to Jesus. There is an intimate connection between our ability to listen to Jesus, to listen to God, and to listen to another person. When we give our attention to another, whether it be a stranger on a bus or in a supermarket queue or our nearest and dearest, we discover that everybody is uniquely interesting, everybody has a story to tell, a unique way of experiencing the world. And when we have heard the story of another, encountered them as a person of flesh and blood as we are, surely that makes it less likely that we’ll be capable of harming them in any way. Receiving their story, perhaps their pain, as precious shards to be held with care, dissolves our ability or desire to cause them any injury, even if we find ourselves at odds with their worldview.
St Thérèse of Lisieux called her way to holiness the Little Way: in every situation we can make whatever we do an offering of love to the Lord. Nothing is too small. The diminishments that come with ageing give us many precious opportunities of living with limitations, offering with love the increasing difficulty of doing the smallest most familiar things. Hope comes in the most unexpected ways. Our very vulnerability can make us less formidable and daunting than we were in our youth, and bring out the timid gifts of those around us. We may have to learn to receive with grace the love that others want to give us.
So what does it mean to be set alight by the Gospel? Madeleine Delbrêl puts it like this:
The Lord’s sentence that we have extracted from the Gospel at morning Mass or in a subway ride, or between two household chores, or in the evening in our bed, must no longer leave us, any more than our life or our spirit leaves us. It wants to fertilize, modify, renew the handshake that we want to give, our effort in our task, our gaze upon those we meet, our reaction to fatigue, our jolt of pain, our fulfillment in joy. It wants to be at home everywhere that we are at home. It wants to be us everywhere that we are ourselves.
I’ll end by repeating a favourite story of the Desert Fathers. Abba Lot approached an older monk, Abba Joseph and said ‘I keep my little rule and my little fast. I pray, perform manual labour, try to live at peace with all. What more can I do?’ Abba Joseph rose and stretched out his hands to heaven and his fingers glowed like ten lamps of fire. He said, ‘Why not become all flame?’
Sr Philippa
Artwork by Dame Joanna Jamieson
Text and image ©Stanbrook Abbey