Transfiguration

You're thinking, Trans? Whoa, LSP, easy tiger! But no, this post has nothing to do with the Bolshevik drivel which passes for human thought these days. On the contrary, it's about our Lord's Transfiguration on Tabor.

There, on the holy mountain, Christ shone like the Sun but brighter still. So too may we. Is there a goal of greater worth? No, it's the pearl of great price, the treasure hid in a field.

O GOD, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening; Merficully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty, who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

God bless,

LSP

A Sunday Reflection

"LSP, two wild dogs killed my cat, I saw it! They just marched straight up on my porch, shook Baxter like a rag and ran back off. It was the burnished one that did it. 

"So if you're going to set up on the porch and go to work you better get out and carry a gun, and shoot the hell outta them! And don't you leave that Blue on his own on the porch, they'll be fixing to kill that poor baby like they did my Baxter."

I know the "burnished one" and his scraggly sidekick. They're a pair of Meth Shack strays who roam the sylvan boulevards of this rural haven, making a menace of themselves. I also know that Blue Ferox could take them even though he's blind, and that they run when I tell them to git! I did not say this to Miss R, I did say, "Yes, Ma'am."

Cat killers aside, Mass went well at the Missions today with everyone in high pre-Lenten spirits. We considered the Transfiguration in the Gospel, and here's a short sermon in the form of a Collect:

O God, who before the passion of thy only-begotten Son

didst reveal his glory upon the holy mount: Grant unto us

that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may

be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his

likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ

our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy

Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

God bless,

LSP

Transfiguration

"Christ, like the sun, too bright to look upon, reveals his luminous power." Austin Farrer 

Today, in St. Matthew's Gospel, we witness the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor where, for a moment, Jesus' divine radiance, the light that shines in the darkness, is revealed to Peter, James and John.

Peter babbles, understandably, until he's cut short by the voice of the Father, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him." Rather than listen to my babbling, here's a poem by Malcolm Guite:

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

I like that.

God bless,

LSP