The Transfiguration
“Discerning 1” by Casey Murano
“To The Heights” - Annunciation Heights (Hanna & Pat Briley)
The Transfiguration
By Michael O’Connell
The story of the Transfiguration has always been one of my favorites. I remember hearing it as a kid and being very confused by the phrasing about how Jesus’s “clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them,” because I had no idea what a fuller was (and come to think of it, I’ve still never heard of that word outside of this context!) I have always been drawn to the stories showing Jesus’s divinity, and this might be the most powerful one—in a handful of lines, we are taken along on a transformative mystical experience.
The story begins with Jesus and His closest friends retreating from the crowds and going up the mountaintop, showing how in order to experience this kind of mystery we need to first withdraw from the normal routines of our daily lives. And then once they’re up there, the wonder and strangeness of it all increases dramatically with every line. First, we get the line about Jesus shining like the sun; next, we get Him conversing with two long-dead pillars of His faith; finally, we get God Himself declaring that Jesus is the beloved one that we need to listen to.
This all comes right on the heels of the passage where Peter answers Christ's question, “Who do you say that I am?” by declaring “You are the Messiah.” I like that the declaration of faith precedes this kind of revelation. It is only after Peter’s affirmation that they all come to see what it truly means. I think that our faith is often like this—we need to jump before we can be sure that we will be caught.
But the thing that resonated with me most this year, as I reflected on how this passage speaks specifically to us as Catholic artists, is the final line—Christ’s admonition not to tell anyone about this until after He has risen from the dead. I’ll admit, in my more skeptical moments this has seemed more like a justification for why the rest of Jesus’s disciples didn’t hear about any of this (presumably) until after the Resurrection, but this year I’ve been struck by the reality that sometimes we need time and a distance from an experience before we can adequately share it with others.
We might be moved by inspiration, or have a particularly intense experience that we want to write about right away, but often it is too fresh, too overpowering, to capture in that moment. We need to wait, reflect, let it sit. It is only when we’ve given it room to breathe, and given ourselves time to process, that we can tell the story in the way it deserves to be told.
So this Lent, I’m thinking about the stories I’ve been sitting on, the experiences that I’ve been letting breathe, and wondering if it is perhaps the acceptable time to let them out into the world. I invite you all to do the same.
Michael O’Connell, PhD. is currently the inaugural fellow at the Jesuit Media Lab; read more of his work at Nothing Gold.
Casey Murano is a visual artist based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia who creates drawings and practices of pilgrimage. Learn more about her work here: www.caseymurano.com
Hanna & Pat Briley are a married music duo who met working at summer camp leading worship together. They both have a passion for writing music & sharing beauty with others. Hanna is currently in the process of recording her first album; if you’d like to support them or find more of their music follow @hmangiomusic. Hanna’s single “The Race” was one of FOCUS’s four Awaken Competition winners during the 2019 Beauty Initiative. Pat also has his full length album available on all platforms.