Pastors Notes from August 6, 2023
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August 7, 2023On a few occasions during the Church year the “ordinary” Sunday readings are interrupted for significant “holy day.” We have such an occurrence this weekend as the “Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time” is displaced with the holy day, “Transfiguration of the Lord.” Each calendar year this holy day falls on August sixth, thus a Sunday this year, giving it precedence over the Ordinary Time liturgy. Outside of our Sunday obligations and holy days that annually are celebrated on a Sunday, the Roman Catholic Church decrees these holy days of obligation: Holy Mary Mother of God (January 1st), Ascension of the Lord (moved to the seventh Sunday of Easter Season), Corpus Christi (moved to the second Sunday following Pentecost), Assumption of Mary (August 15), All Saints Day (November 1), Immaculate Conception (December 8), Christmas and Epiphany. As to the question, “why so many,” the gracious response would be our understanding of how we are so abundantly blessed by God, (often overlooked or taken for granted), these holy days allow us to focus upon specific aspects of our faith providing us the values and virtues in a changing world.
Which leads to the question of a ‘ranking’ of holy days within our Roman Catholic calendar. “Solemnity” is the highest rank of a feast day, commemorating an event in the life of Jesus or Mary, or a significant Saint within the universal Church (Transfiguration, St. Peter & Paul, St. Joseph, All Souls Day, etc.). A “Feast” day is a secondary rank of liturgical days in the Roman Calendar of lesser events in the life of Jesus, Mary or saints (St. Philip & James, St. Matthew, St. Mary Magdalene, Guardian Angels, etc.). “Memorial” feasts on the Roman Calendar commemorates less significant saints of the universal Church (St. Katherine Drexel, St. Agnes, St. Nicholas, etc.). And finally, “Seasonal Weekdays” are the significant days within the Liturgical Seasons of Advent, Christmastime, Lent and Eastertime. Regardless of the so-called ‘ranking’ these days within our Roman Catholic calendar they can each give us pause to reflect on our faith—nurtured by the Eucharist and participation in the Sacraments—of a God who has been present, is and will always be; and His covenant with us through His Son, Christ Jesus and the constant working of the Holy Spirit. And so our Solemnity, The Transfiguration, we celebrate this Sunday. Pope Francis provides a thoughtful context to this holy day in which we remember our Lord transfigured before Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor. “To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!' ... But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off ... we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because he is God, he is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. He is the power of God, he is the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable.”
Pope Francis exhorts us to witness the ‘transfiguring’ grace of God in everyday life, within our surroundings however common or mundane, our relationships or chance encounters, the path we take through our routines, responsibilities and decisions. Author Marilynne Robinson from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop comments on such possibilities regardless of age or circumstances.
“The Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little [faith] willingness to see. Only, who could have the [faith] courage to see it?”
Maybe in a partial way or more, we can open our senses to the “transfiguring moments” within our common day as the three apostles witnessed on Mount Tabor; and through faith, declare such grace in the words of St. Peter, “Lord, it is good that we are here.”
God Bless, Fr. Tim
FYI: “August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.
(Sylvia Plath, American poet)
