Spero News
Aug 6 2007

Feast of the Transfiguration: a gift from the east

The Feast of the Transfiguration, which has always been celebrated in
Eastern Christianity, has been on the Universal Calendar only since
the 15th Century. It marked a turning point in history that is
relevant today.

Sunday, August 05, 2007By Jay Scott Newman

Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!

The Feast of the Transfiguration (described with slightly different
emphases by Matthew, Mark and Luke) recalls the manifestation of His
divine glory by the Lord Jesus to Peter, James, and John on Mt.
Tabor. During this revelation of His divine nature to human eyes,
Jesus was accompanied by Moses and Elijah, living symbols of the Law
and Prophets, who spoke to their Savior about the suffering which He
would endure in His passion and death. This combination of suffering
and glory reveals the paradox at the heart of the Gospel and spoken
of by the Lord Jesus just before His Transfiguration: "If anyone
wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose
it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." (Luke
9:23-24)

The oldest known liturgical celebration of this feast was in the
Armenian Church, and the 7th century Armenian Bishop Gregory
Arsharuni wrote that the feast was placed in the liturgy in the early
4th century by St. Gregory the Illuminator. In the Orthodox Church,
the Feast of the Transfiguration is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of
the liturgical year, and it is both preceded by a fast and celebrated
with a Vigil and an Octave, in the way Latin Rite Catholics celebrate
Christmas and Easter. These liturgical observances underscore the
importance of the truths revealed to us by the Transfiguration of the
LORD.

The Feast of the Transfiguration, which from antiquity has been kept
on August 6th, gradually entered the liturgical life of the Western
Church through our monasteries, and by the tenth century this feast
was observed in many of the dioceses of England, France and Germany.
But despite the importance and widespread celebration of this feast,
it was not placed by the Pope on the Universal Calendar until the
15th century, and the reason for that change is a timely one for us.

In 1453, Sultan Mohammed II conquered the great Christian imperial
capital of Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul; the armies of
Islam seemed to be invincible, and the Turks were on the move north
and west. But on 22 July 1456, János Hunyady, the Governor of Hungary
and a devout Catholic, led a Christian army to victory over the Turks
at Belgrade, marking a turning point in the centuries-long struggle
between the Christian West and militant Islam. In celebration of this
victory, Pope Callistus III extended the Feast of the Transfiguration
to the universal Church and ordered that it be kept each year on
August 6th. Callistus died two years later on 6 August 1458.

Reverend Jay Scott Newman is pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church
in Greenville, SC. Father Newman’s other articles and homilies can be
seen at his blog .