The Transfiguration of the Lord

David Wm. Mickiewicz
Aug 5, 2023
5 min read

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 97; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9

snow bright – white as wool – flames of fire – wheels of burning fire – a surging stream of fire – like the sun – white as light

What is being described…this terrifying, cosmic, white fire? The divine presence? Or is it the experience of the Japanese citizens of Hiroshima at 8:16am, the morning of 6 August 1945?

What a paradoxical coincidence that the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the first use of the atomic bomb as a weapon of war occur on the same day. How similar the experiences are of light and cloud and yet how deeply other.

Light is a very important theme in Japan. It is a country of light with its many lantern festivals.

Light is also at the heart of Christianity. We begin the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection by singing out “Christ our Light”. The priest presents the Paschal Candle to each newly baptized and proclaims, “Receive the Light of Christ!” Advent with its growing number of candles lit each Sunday, Christmas, Epiphany, Candlemas, Resurrection, Pentecost, Transfiguration, Assumption with the gathering of the sun, moon and stars are all feasts of light. Light is the symbol for the presence of God.

Jesus proclaims, “I am the light of the world!”_{[John 8: 12]}. Yet the light produced by the atomic bomb was not a light of life but a light of destruction and death. The mushroom cloud did not emit the voice of God but the roar of the lion looking to devour us. The roar is still heard. Even before Russia’s war with Ukraine President Vladimir Putin threatened the use of nuclear weapons. There is now renewed anxiety on the European continent over suggestions of an attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The confluence of the Russian – Ukrainian war, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord must awaken a moral examination of our nation’s nuclear weapons polices and that of the world.

I found it ironic in the movie “Oppenheimer”, that Oppenheimer says to a fellow physicist, “I don’t know if we can be trusted with such a weapon, but I know the Nazis can’t”. Robert you were wrong. Neither can we trusted with such a weapon being the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons – and against a civilian population.

Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester is calling on U. S. Catholics to have an “urgent conversation” about the continued risks posed by the stockpiling and development of nuclear weapons. “We are the people who designed and built these weapons of mass destruction,” he wrote, “we must be the people to dismantle them and make sure they are never used again”.

Pope Francis has been more forthright. He has not only condemned the use but also the possession of nuclear weapons. “If we also take into account the risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind, the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned,” he told a gathering at the Vatican in December 2017.

Forty years ago, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published a pastoral letter on war and peace called, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response.” Peace is the challenge of Jesus offered to us on the morning of the resurrection.

However, not only did he say, “I am the light of the world!”_{[John 8: 12]}but he also says to us, “You are the light of the world” _{[Matthew 5:14]}. The Letter of Peter says that we possess a reliable prophetic message. In our Christian understanding of prophecy, prophets do not foretell the future rather they shed a light on present situations. Prophets challenge people to see the darkness, the evil, and the injustices that envelope them and in which they participate. Prophets call people to a change of heart. They challenge us to take action to change the present situation for the vision and reality of God for his sons and daughters.

If we are to be light for our world, Christians need to be prophetic piercing the consciousness of the world with the truth of Christ. The darkness to be pierced is human arrogance, indifference and the complacency of deterrence. People think that as long as we have deterrence we are in a neutral position, everything is fine. However, that is not true. The danger of nuclear war is always a possibility. The Ukrainian war alone has heightened awareness of that fact. Deterrence is not a strategy, it is a very dangerous game to play. Archbishop Wester writes, ” We either completely avoid nuclear war, or we’re completely destroyed by it. There’s no in-between.”

Wester’s 2022 pastoral letter is entitled, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament” Nuclear disarmament is not a simple moral question. It’s not “should I or should I not rob a bank?” No, you shouldn’t. Theft is immoral. The possibility of nuclear war is about our existence and that of this planet. The issue of nuclear disarmament is a complex question because it must be multilateral and mutually verifiable.

Anne Sullentrop, vice president of PeaceWorks Kansas City, maintains she is cautiously optimistic nuclear weapons can be banned. She points out there are now some 92 signatories and 68 states parties to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which prohibits the development, testing, production, possession, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. The treaty adopted by the U.N. General Assembly entered into force on 22 January 2021.

The United States has not yet signed or ratified this international treaty. We possess 5,244 nuclear weapons.

After the first test bomb, ironically called ‘Trinity’, Robert J. Oppenheimer said he thought the words of a Hindu sacred text, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”. Today we are told by God to listen to the words of his Son, Jesus who says, “I am the bread of life…” I am resurrection and life…” “I am the way, the truth and the life…” “I am light…”

What does it mean for us to live in the light of Christ’s peace?

Is it not to be transfigured ourselves?

The Transfiguration of the Lord

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