Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ

On a high mountain, apart, the face of Christ became brilliant as the sun while His garments became white as light (Mt. 17:2). With him stood the principal Apostles: St. Peter, the Head of the Church; St. James, the first Apostle martyr; St. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved (Lk. 9:28).

Witnesses to the glory of their Master, the Apostles also recognized Moses and Elias, who conversed with Christ in majesty. These two figures symbolize the Law and the Prophets, and the profound unity between the Old Testament and the messianic reality that is being fulfilled in the New.

As St. Leo the Great explains: “all that serves to bear witness to this in ancient times is found with the teaching of the Gospel. The pages of the one and the other Covenant, in fact, confirm each other, and the One whom the ancient symbols had promised under the veil of mysteries, the splendor of His present glory shows manifest and certain.

“It is that, as St. John says, ‘the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came to us through Jesus Christ,’ in whom both the promise of the prophetic figures and the meaning of the precepts of the law were fulfilled. For, by His presence, He teaches the truth of prophecy, and, through His grace, He makes possible the practice of the commandments.”

Such is the glory of Christ, true God and true Man, which is celebrated by the liturgy in order to encourage the Christian people not to fear the sufferings and crosses of this life. It is at this price that the reward of eternal life and the beatitude of Heaven are earned.

It was Pope Callixtus III who extended the feast of the Transfiguration as a solemnity to the entire Church. Indeed, the news of the victory at Belgrade reached Rome on August 6, 1456.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmet II laid siege to Belgrade. Thanks to the heroic actions of the troops of Michael Szilágyi and to the counterattack led by John Hunyadi, not to mention the decisive action of the Papal Legate, St. John of Capistrano, this victory decided the fate of Christianity by stopping the invading tide of Islamism.