Rosary Meditation: The Fourth Luminous Mystery

The upper part of the Transfiguration (1520) b... — Image via Wikipedia

This rosary meditation is on the Fourth Luminous Mystery — The Transfiguration. In this mystery, Jesus took his apostles, Peter, John, and James up to a mountain to pray. There His clothes turned dazzling white and Moses and Elijah appeared with Him. Then a voice came from the clouds saying, “This is my chosen Son; listen to Him.”

In this mystery, Jesus reveals himself as being God made man. This instance separates Jesus from the prophets of the Old Testament. Yes, He performed miracles and preached God’s word, but so did the prophets. The Old Testament is full of stories of people using the grace of God to perform miracles such as Moses parting the Red Sea. But in the Transfiguration, Jesus shows that He is no mere prophet following God’s will, but He IS God’s will, God’s word, and God’s truth in human form. I think this is why Moses and Elijah appeared next to Jesus; as if God was contrasting Himself with the prophets that came before Him.

God, Creator of all that exists and ever will exist, the ultimate truth, our final judge, the alpha and the omega, humbled Himself and came down to earth in a human form so that we may know Him personally. God desires all of us to live in His grace and love and so He became man through Jesus Christ so that we may better understand His ways. Our human minds cannot possibly understand God’s infinite complexity and He knows that. So like an adult trying to explain a complex idea to a child, God revealed Himself in a very simple and direct way — by taking a form which people could see, hear, and touch.

God gave the apostles a very direct command to listen to Jesus. And yet, after all they had seen and heard, they abandoned Jesus at His crucifixion. Unfortunately, we continue to imitate the apostles’ behavior whenever we disobey God’s will and sin. Imagine our arrogance to have received the word of God directly from Jesus and then deliberately disregard it because it conflicts with how we want to live or it seem too difficult. We say we are followers of Christ, but when it comes time to humble ourselves to God’s will and accept Jesus’ teachings we often tell Him, “thanks, but no thanks.” In the Transfiguration, God gave us very simple and direct order on how we are to obtain grace and that is to listen to His son, Jesus Christ. And yet, each one of us can probably think of an instance where we refuse God’s grace through our words, thoughts, or actions.

So let us take a moment to remember the awesome gift God gave us through His son, Jesus Christ. We should remember the gift of the Catholic Church starting with the first pope, St. Peter, who was there at the Transfiguration and later personally appointed by Jesus to lead His people. God told us to listen to Jesus which means we should learn what the Church teaches so that we may know Him, follow Him, and love Him. God gave us a tremendous gift by making Himself more accessible through Jesus. We should pray for all of those who are wasting this precious gift by not following God’s will. We must pray for a world that seems to have gone out of its way NOT to listen to God’s message.

God made Himself available to all of us through Jesus Christ. The question is, do we make ourselves available to God by listening to Him?