Prayer & Transfiguration

 

When Christ goes up the holy mountain with Peter, James and John he goes to pray and this, prayer, is quite literally a matter of life and death, of union with God or not. Here's Benedict XVI via Catholic Exchange:

Thus, for the three apostles, going up the mountain meant being involved in the prayer of Jesus, who frequently withdrew in prayer, especially at dawn and after sunset, and sometimes all night. However, this was the only time, on the mountain, that he chose to reveal to his friends the inner light that filled him when he prayed: his face, we read in the gospel, shone and his clothes were radiant with the splendor of the divine Person of the incarnate Word (see Luke 9:29).

 

Radiant with the splendor of the incarnate Word. Beautiful, and this:

Dear brothers and sisters, prayer is not an accessory or “optional,” but a question of life or death. In fact, only those who pray—in other words, who entrust themselves to God with filial love—can enter eternal life, which is God himself.

 

A terrifying warning but also a remarkable, unfathomable promise of transfiguring glory. So listen up, you heathen, and get in the business of climbing that mountain.

Oremus,

LSP

Epiphany

We celebrate the great Feast of the Epiphany today and with it look to the Magi, the Wise Men, who in turn point to Christ and reveal his nature in their gifts. Gold for Kingship, frankincense for divinity and myrrh for embalming and death. The Christ child is our divine king whose throne is the cross. But what of the Magi themselves?

They were astronomers who followed a star, and some argue this was a supernova, a conjunction of planets or something else again, a miraculous event. Perhaps it was all of these, but the Wise Men were more than  astral calculators, they were "wise," they looked for the truth and they found it, Incarnate, lying in a manger.

I was struck by this, from Pope Benedict XVI:

They were "wise." They represent the inner dynamic of religion toward self-transcendence, which involves a search for truth, a search for the true God and hence "philosophy" in the original sense of the word. Wisdom, then, serves to purify the message of "science": the rationality of that message does not remain at the level of intellectual knowledge, but seeks understanding in its fullness, and so raises reason to its loftiest possibilities.

Loftiest possibilities? Heaven itself and the throne of glory, all to be found in the baby lying under a star in a manger.

God bless you all,

LSP