He was transfigured before them: The Transfiguration of the Lord and Mary’s contemplative gaze upon the glorious Son

The Transfiguration (Mt 17,1-9) is the narrative climax of Matthew’s Gospel before the Passion: the revelation of Jesus’ divine identity to a select group of disciples on a mountain, accompanied by the figures of Moses and Elijah. The scene has a deliberate liturgical structure: the ascent to the mountain (v.1), the radiant transformation (v.2), the appearance of patriarchs and prophets (v.3), the voice of the Father repeating the baptismal formula (v.5), the prostration of the disciples (v.6), and the descent with instructions for silence (vv.7-9). Each element corresponds to a previous biblical scene: Moses’ mountain, the light of Exodus, the voice of Sinai.The Transfiguration occurs “six days later” (Mt 17,1) than Peter’s confession (Mt 16,13-20) and the first prediction of the Passion (Mt 16,21-23). The juxtaposition is not accidental: Jesus announced the Passion and revealed glory, the same event viewed from two angles. The Cross and Transfiguration are the two faces of the same mystery: kenosis leading to doxa, the path of the Cross culminating in resurrection, whose anticipation is the light of Tabor. Peter, who resisted the Passion, is the same one who witnessed glory, and the experience of Tabor should have given meaning to the experience of Calvary.I. “Resplenduit facies eius sicut sol”: The Revealed Glory“His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as snow” (Mt 17,2) describes the Transfiguration’s luminescence—the language of biblical glory: the divine glory that Ezekiel saw as “fire and brilliance” (Ez 1,26-28), that Moses could not look upon directly (Ex 33,20-23), and that shone on Moses’ face after his encounter with God (Ex 34,29-35). Jesus does not reflect divine glory like Moses; he is the source of glory: “his face shone” not through contact with the Holy but because he is holy.The appearance of Moses and Elijah, the two great mediators of the Old Testament—one representing Torah and the other the Prophets—places Jesus in continuity with biblical revelation but also in its fulfillment. They “spoke with him” (Mt 17,3) about what Luke will explicitly state as “his exodus that was to be accomplished in Jerusalem” (Lk 9,31): the Passion is the topic of conversation on Tabor. The glory of Transfiguration exists not despite the Cross but because of it—the doxa the disciples see is the doxa of one who dies and rises again.The Father’s voice, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him” (Mt 17,5), echoes and strengthens the voice at Baptism (Mt 3,17), adding the imperative “listen to him.” At Baptism, the voice identified Jesus. On Tabor, the voice commands listening: the revelation of identity culminates in a mandate to hear. Tabor’s theology is ultimately a theology of obedience: recognizing Jesus’ glory means committing to listen to him, even when he speaks of Cross and death.II. “Non est hic bonum esse”: The Temptation to Stay on Tabor“‘It is good that we are here’” (Mt 17:4), Peter’s proposal to build three tents is the temptation to fix the extraordinary spiritual experience: turning the moment of grace into a permanent residence. Peter wants “to stay” on Mount Tabor because the experience is too good to end, he does not understand that Transfiguration is an anticipation, not a destination. Tabor is given to illuminate the path to the Cross, not to replace it.The temptation to “stay on Tabor” runs through spiritual history: the pursuit of mystical consolations that avoids the desert, the enthusiasm of prayer experiences that dispenses ordinary life, the initial fervor that does not endure the dark night. Jesus’ instruction, “Rise and do not be afraid” (Mt 17:7), is the descent movement that always follows an experience of glory: Tabor is not the end of the journey but a reinforcement to continue.

III. Mary and Tabor: The Contemplative of the Glorious Son

Mary was not on Tabor according to the Gospels, Transfiguration was revealed only to Peter, James, and John. But contemplation of the Son’s glory is a central dimension of Marian spirituality: she who “contemplated” the Son since Bethlehem, who “preserved and meditated” on the mysteries (Lk 2:19, 51), reached a level of contemplation that no one of the three disciples on Tabor achieved, the glory of the Resurrected, whose glory shines like the sun in Resurrection and whose glory Mary shares in Assumption.The Assumption of Mary, dogmatically defined by Pius XII in 1950, is, from a theological perspective, the “Transfiguration” of Mary personally: the body that generated the glorious Son shares in the bodily glorification of the Resurrected. What the disciples saw on Tabor for moments, the human body transfigured by divine glory, Mary lives eternally in Assumption. The feast of Transfiguration (August 6) and the feast of Assumption (August 15), separated by only ten days in the liturgical calendar, form a contemplative diptych: the glory revealed in the Son (August 6) and the glory shared by the Mother (August 15).Marian contemplation of the glorious Son also has a earthly dimension: Mary saw the Resurrected Son before the apostles (according to tradition referred to by John Paul II) and contemplated him in his fulfillment, which she had intuited since the Annunciation. The “face that shines like the sun” on Tabor is the same face that Mary contemplated on the morning of Resurrection, and it is the face that, according to mystical tradition, keeps her in eternal contemplation in Heaven. Devotion to “the face of Jesus” cultivated by Marian tradition has its two foci in Tabor and Resurrection: the transfigured face seen by Peter, James, and John, and the Resurrected face contemplated by Mary.

IV. “Here is my beloved Son”: From the Father’s Voice to Mary’s Faith

«This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear him» (Mt 17:5), the Trinitarian formula of the Transfiguration (Son revealed, Father who speaks, luminous cloud which is the Spirit) has in Mary its privileged receiver in the history of salvation. Mary was the first to hear «Son of the Most High» (Lk 1:32) about Jesus, by the Angel who transmitted the Word of the Father. The voice from Tabor is the solemn confirmation of what Mary accepted in faith since the Annunciation: that the Son she generated is the Son of the Father.The imperative «hear him» which the Father’s voice adds at the Transfiguration is the imperative that Mary lived before any disciple: she who «preserved and meditated» (Lk 2:19, 51) is the one who most radically «listened» to the Son, not only the words of public preaching but also the silent words of thirty years in Nazareth, the gestures of miracles, the silence of Gethsemane. Mary’s listening is the model of the listening that Tabor invites: not superficial listening that wants «to stay on Tabor» but listening that descends with Jesus to the path of the Cross and awaits the third day.The feast of the Transfiguration, established universally by Pope Callixtus III in 1457 as a thanksgiving for the victory of Belgrade over the Turks (22 July 1456, announced on 6 August), is simultaneously a feast of Christ’s glory and an invitation to contemplation: to see the glory in order to have strength for the Cross, to contemplate Tabor in order to pass through Calvary. Mary who passed through Calvary without abandoning her faith is the model of this contemplation that sustains the path; she who did not «stay on Tabor» of the Annunciation but descended to the valley of the Cross and to Calvary of surrender, to rise again in the glory of the Assumption.