Introduction to the Spring, 2008 Communio

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Spring 2008. The Transfiguration

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

The Spring, 2008 issue of Communio continues our annual reflection on the mysteries of the life of Jesus with four articles devoted to the Transfiguration. In the words of John Paul II, “the Gospel scene of Christ’s transfiguration . . . can be seen as an icon of Christian contemplation. To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendor definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father: this is the task of every follower of Christ and therefore the task of each one of us” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 21).

In “Embodied Light, Incarnate Image: The Mystery of Jesus Transfigured,” José Granados reflects on the relation between the imago Dei and the vision of God. Drawing on the writings of the Church Fathers and the philosopher Hans Jonas, Granados articulates a renewed understanding of the body as a constitutive part of the imago Dei and thus “the place where transcendence can be most properly shown.” “Far from being a mere subsidiary of the soul, a veil admitting a light that is not its own, the body has its own proper language that determines the meaning of the image and specifies the act of vision.”

In “The Transfiguration: Or, the Outcome of History Placed in the Hands of Freedom,” Jean-Pierre Batut suggests that the Transfiguration was a decisive event, not just for the disciples, but for the Lord himself: “By virtue of his willingness to undergo the Passion, the Son in the Incarnation receives the whole of the Father’s glory. From the moment of the Transfiguration, which is the original place of his consent, he is able to do with it what he wishes.”

In “The Theological and Mystical Significance of the Transfiguration According to the Church Fathers,” Michael Figura shows how Origen and Hilary of Poitiers view the Transfiguration as an exegesis of the hymn in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (Phil 2:5–11): “The Transfiguration is, for Jesus’s disciples and ultimately for all who believe in God, a sign of our hope that we may participate in his glory.”

In “The Transfiguration of Jesus,” Klaus Berger offers a close reading of the Transfiguration narrative in the gospel of Mark, with particular emphasis on the typological significance of this pericope in relation to Moses’s ascent of Mount Sinai. “God had communicated himself to the prophets and fathers to such a degree that their faces were illumined. He communicates himself entirely to Jesus; this is why his garments are illumined. He is indeed the Son.”

In “Raising the Ante: Recovering an Alpha and Omega Christology,” Gil Bailie reflects on the significance of René Girard’s writings for a new appropriation of both the uniqueness and the universality of Jesus Christ’s Incarnation, death, and Resurrection. “The fall that led to Abel’s murder,” Bailie argues, “was the fall from communion . . . . The death of Christ on the Cross is the re-enactment of Abel’s murder and all other forms of sacred, culture-forming violence, and it reveals—‘more eloquently’ than did the blood of Abel—the truth about how fallen humans turn their sinfulness into righteousness on the cheap at the expense of their victims.”

Against the backdrop of Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to the United States, in “‘Keeping the World Awake to God’: Benedict XVI and America,” David L. Schindler considers the importance of Benedict’s theology for an engagement with American culture. Schindler shows how Benedict has proposed a new sense of the integrity of nature and reason in light of a new sense of the reasonableness of the demand for openness to God and love at the heart of America’s public culture.

We continue our Why We Need series with a contribution by Glenn Olsen on the British historian Christopher Dawson (1889–1970). Olsen suggests that Dawson’s greatest historical contribution was his writing of history around the idea of Christian culture, an innovation which in turn expressed his conviction that culture is embodied religion. “Dawson’s notion of Christian culture,” Olsen argues, “depends on the possibility of meaning exercising historical causality and, therefore, on the possibility of formal analysis of cultures. Dawson’s method, updated and laid bare . . . is a most salutary challenge to the kind of nominalism found everywhere in the historical profession, and not just in England.”

Notes and Comments closes the issue with two contributions: in “The Holy Transfiguration: A Mystagogical Catechesis,” Robert Slesinski presents the liturgical texts from the Byzantine Office for the Feast of the Holy Transfiguration—texts that “are, at once, pedagogical as they are mystagogical, initiating the worshiper into the very mystery of the Divine Light of Mount Tabor.”

In “‘Grace of the Valar’: The Lord of the Rings Movie,” Stratford Caldecott reflects on the merits and limits of the three-part film directed by Peter Jackson. “It is sad,” Caldecott observes, “that more of Tolkien’s vision of humility and spiritual greatness was not successfully translated to screen, but we should be profoundly grateful to Peter Jackson and his group for the elements that were.”

—NJH

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