Second Sunday of Lent
One time last year I was praying the Rosary and I was dead bored. At the fourth Luminous mystery I said to Jesus: “Can you show me something new about the Transfiguration?”
The Transfiguration should hold a special place in the hearts of visual artists, because it’s one of the few times the Gospel writers tried to describe how something looked.
Yet it’s a daunting subject: how to depict glory?
First, we need to seek it.
Like Veronica, who encountered Jesus in his sorrowful glory, we want to draw so close to Christ that we come away with an image. As artists, we need encounters with God – we need mountain-top experiences – for the sake of our souls, and the sake of our art.
As I was praying that decade, my mind wandered to a Theology of the Body course I was taking. I had learned that the body reveals our human person, but, since the Fall, our bodies no longer reveal our souls perfectly.
But what about Mary? I thought. She had no original sin, so her body must have revealed her person perfectly. And yet, surely she must still have been kept hidden in some way because otherwise it would be obvious to everyone she encountered that she was the Immaculate Conception.
And what about Jesus? As the second person of the Trinity, the full revelation of his person through his body must have been concealed, or his divinity would have been evident.
But what if that concealment was taken away? What if Jesus’ body revealed his entire person–both his human and divine natures–in one moment? What would that be like?
And then it hit me.
It would be the Transfiguration.
The glory of Jesus’ person revealed on the mountaintop: his face shone like the sun and his clothes whiter than any fuller could bleach them.
Jesus was deliberate in who he led up the mountain. They weren’t just anyone – they were his closest friends. Jesus must have wanted his closest friends to really know him, I think: not just his humanity, but his divinity too.
Reading the scripture today, we are now the ones up the mountain with Jesus. We are the ones Jesus wants as his closest friends.
Like Veronica, we can’t predict those moments of suffering that will bring us closer to the crucified Jesus, but we can choose – through prayer – to climb the mountain and place ourselves in the presence of his glory.
And to assuage any doubts as to whether we should seek Christ in this way: when Peter blurts out that he wants to stay there, rather than being rebuked, the disciples are given an incredible gift: the Father draws close to them and speaks.
And they fell to the ground in awe.
Today, we are the ones he beckons: My dear friends, climb the mountain with me and pray.
Naomi Leach is a Sydney-based artist, illustrator and writer, who can be found with a coffee, a good book and perhaps a neighbor’s dog. You can find out more about her at www.naomileach.com.au