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Tuesday in the Second Week: The Greatness of Jesus Revealed on Thabor
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
The mystery of the Transfiguration upon which we are meditating this week makes three marvellously beautiful truths to shine forth: first, the greatness of Jesus Christ; second, the power of His mediation; third, the authority of His teaching. After considering these things we will make the resolution: first, to entertain within ourselves a great reverence for Jesus Christ, and a great confidence in His mediation; second, to imitate Jesus Christ and obey His inspiration. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Gospel: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him” (Matt. xvii:5).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us transport ourselves in spirit upon Thabor, and let us listen with great devotion to the panegyrics which God the Father pronounces upon His Son. Let us love the Father who thus praises, and the Son who is thus praised.
The greatness of Christ revealed upon Thabor
If we have preached to you, says St Peter to the faithful in his second epistle, the power and the coming of Christ, it is that “we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ: but having been made eye-witnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory, this voice coming down to Him from the excellent glory: This is My beloved Son, in whom I have pleased Myself; hear ye Him” (II Pet. i:16–17). Oh, how great He is, He whom we adore in our tabernacles! And with what holy trembling, what profound religion, ought we to appear in presence of His infinite grandeur, not less real when He veils it through love and humility beneath the Eucharistic species than when He reveals it on Thabor before the dazzled eyes of His apostles! It is the Son of God, not by adoption, by resemblance, by elevation, like the just, but by nature, by identity of essence, equal in all things to His Father; like Him, all-powerful, eternal, immense, infinite in all perfection, holy of holies, God of the universe, Creator of all things. Let us prostrate ourselves before so much greatness, and ask pardon of Him for having been so often wanting in respect in church, in prayer, in the habitual disposition of our heart.
The power of Christ’s mediation revealed on Thabor
Jesus Christ had already declared Himself to be Our mediator with His Father by those sweet words which He said to His apostles: Ask My Father in My name; but upon Thabor God the Father reveals to us the power of this mediation by proclaiming Him to be His only Son, His well-beloved, the object of all His complaisance, and, consequently, not only possessed of all power over His heart, but the only one by whom all prayers must be presented; the only one who infallibly obtains a gracious answer to them. It was the design of the Father that we should be redeemed and sanctified by this well-beloved Son; it is also His design that all our prayers should be offered through Him and always answered by Him, on account of the great reverence He bears Him (Heb. v:7). What a consolation for us to have such mediation! With what fullness of confidence we ought to address all our prayers to Heaven through Him! Do we not often forget these means of assuring the effect of our prayers?
The authority of Christ’s teachings revealed on Thabor
It ought to be an immense consolation for us to be the disciples of a Master and Doctor respecting whom Heaven proclaims the divine mission in a manner so lofty and solemn. Hear ye Him, said the heavenly voice; listen to His teachings, not only because they reveal to you the dogmas of faith, which it is your duty to believe, in spite of what the senses and reason seem to you to contradict; but also when He preaches moral and practical truths to you, telling you that the happiness of this life consists in poverty, in contempt, and in suffering, that we must renounce and hate ourselves, oppose and do violence to ourselves, deprive and crucify ourselves without pity. Hear ye Him when He teaches you by the language of His examples (II Pet. i:17). He always led a laborious and hidden life, all His days were passed in suffering; He placed Himself below all others, even at the feet of His disciples; He was meek and humble of heart, accepting as His portion poverty, opprobrium, humiliation, and suffering. Hear ye Him when He speaks to you by the secret voice of His inspiration. His grace is always at the door of your heart, urging you to lead a better life, and to put aside the life which is only according to nature, entirely human, the life of frivolity and dissipation, the life of routine and habit, the life which is eternally the same, void of any reformation of defects as well as of any progress in virtue. Submit yourselves, in a word, to the expostulations of the grace which urges you. Happy he who listens to it in the peace and silence of the soul, and who, after having listened, generously obeys it (III Imit. i:1). Is it thus that we act?
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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