Readings:
Daily Office:
AM Psalm 2, 24; Exodus 24:12-18;
2 Corinthians 4:1-6
PM: Psalm 72;
Daniel 7:9-10,13-14; John 12:27-36aEucharistic:
Psalm 99 or Psalm 99:5-9
Exodus 34:29-35
2 Peter 1:13-21
Luke 9:28-36Preface of the Epiphany
PRAYER (traditional language)
O God, who on the holy mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thy well-beloved
Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully
grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may
by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with thee, O Father, and thee,
O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.
PRAYER (contemporary language)
O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved
Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully
grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may
by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you,
O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Last updated: 6 June 2023
FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION
(6 AUGUST NT)
Today
we celebrate the occasion (recorded in M 17:1-8 = P 9:2-8 = L 9:28-36)
on which Christ, as He was beginning to teach His disciples that He must
die and rise again, revealed Himself in shining splendor to Peter, James,
and John. Moses and Elijah were present, and are taken to signify that
the Law and the Prophets testify that Jesus is the promised Messiah. God
the Father also proclaimed him as such, saying, "This is my Beloved
Son. Listen to him." For a moment the veil is drawn aside, and men
still on earth are permitted a glimpse of the heavenly reality, the glory
of the Eternal Triune God.
In
the East, the Festival of the Transfiguration has been celebrated since
the late fourth century, and is one of the twelve great festivals of the
East Orthodox calendar. In the West it was observed after the ninth century
by some monastic orders, and in 1457 Pope Callistus III ordered its general
observance. At the time of the Reformation, it was still felt in some
countries to be a "recent innovation," and so was not immediately
taken over into most Reformation calendars, but is now found on most calendars
that have been revised in the twentieth century. A recent tendency in
the West is to commemorate the Transfiguration on the Sunday just before
Lent, in accordance with the pattern found in the Synoptics, where Jesus
is represented as beginning to speak of his forthcoming death just about
the time of the Transfiguration, so that it forms a fitting transition
between the Epiphany season, in which Christ makes himself known, and
the Lenten season, in which he prepares the disciples for what lies ahead.
Whether observing the Transfiguration then will affect the observation
of it on 6 August remains to be seen.
FIRST READING: Exodus 34:29-35
(When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, after speaking with the
LORD, the skin of his face was so radiant that the Israelites were
afraid to look at him. Therefore, he wore a veil.)
PSALM 99 or 99:5-9
(The LORD reigns, let the peoples tremble.... Moses and Aaron and
Samuel cried unto him, and he spoke to them from the pillar of
cloud.)
EPISTLE: 2 Peter 1:13-21
(Peter, near the end of his life, for his own strengthening and
that of his readers, recalls his long-ago experience of seeing the
Transfigured Christ.)
THE HOLY GOSPEL: Luke 9:28-36
(Jesus took Peter and James and John up a mountain, and there
appeared to them in shining splendor, and with Him appeared Moses
and Elijah, who spoke with Him.)
by James Kiefer