If I call attention to the banner above, it is not to fault its appropriateness as much as to note the opposite. For beyond our having no resurrection banner, the choice of this one of the Transfiguration is very appropriate. (The Transfigured Christ bears no marks of wounds in hands and feet, carries the Old Testament scripture in His hand.)

In preparation for the coming disaster of His Passion, the Lord took, as it were, His abbot, prior and subprior, Peter, James and John, to a high mountain and there in converse with Moses and Elias, He talked of what lay ahead in Jerusalem, meanwhile revealing some of His divine glory to the three. It was an overwhelming scene and if the text says they fell asleep, it is perhaps not too wide of the mark to say that they were completely overcome.

All of this to encourage them, for not long after He told them what was to happen to Him. And then the memorable scene when Peter scolded the Lord and insisted nothing like that could or should happen to Him. To which the Lord said to Peter in strong terms: “Get behind me Satan. You are wide of the mark.” And of the vision on the mount, no word is to be spoken on it until He was raised from the dead.

From our point of view the venture on the mountain was not too successful in achieving its point. For of the three Peter did not do too well; of James we know only that he fled, he disappeared; the hero is John, with the Lord to the end.

To display the Transfigured Christ at Easter is then quite fitting, and carries lessons. Granted it came nowhere near the glory and triumph of the Resurrection, it was nonetheless, unforgettable.

As good Christians we have no particular problem with the Lord’s rising. We accept it whole and entire and see no need to soften it in any way, make it more palatable.

As John Updike put it,

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence:
Making of the event a parable, a sign
painted in the faded credulity
of an earlier age:
Let us walk through the door.

Simple truths, like our immortality—everyone’s immortality—that Christ is God and man, present in the Eucharist and offered there till the end of time, the holiness of priesthood, the life of grace in the sacraments, the beauty of love and life—the whole thing. To ponder on these, dwell on these, is superbly healthy for soul and body. To be enchanted with the very extravagance of them all. How healing to live in such deeps. And how much a blessing for the world.

For the point is, of course, that we do that now, in this world, this time, this day, with eyes wide open. With total exposure to a slough of misery. A world replete with the ugliness of hate, of violence, rapine. A world of greed and envy. You need not read the papers, just glance at them. Even blessed by no TV, we know all we can handle.

And do you handle all? Wouldn’t that be the point? I mean, is your Christianity, your faith, only for good times and good people? Or is your self-knowledge so slight that you do not suspect that you are kin to all these people, blood brothers and sisters?

So your resurrection follows a passion and unhappily the passion is not done yet, nor the rising. We must some way or other be disciples of the Passion, Death and Rising. All or nothing.

We were given the Transfiguration to prepare for the Passion, that we might move on into the Rising. And there is no harm in recalling that Transfiguration Day is Hiroshima Day. Our day.

Happy Easter, then embrace yourself, your brother, your world, in Christ and do so with the privilege that is yours for knowing.

   Let us not seek to make it less monstrous
    For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
    Lest awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
    Embarrassed by the miracle
    And crushed by remonstrance.
                                                [John Updike]