The Ministry of Transfiguration

Fr Lev Gillet

From Lev Gillet [A Monk of the Eastern Church]. On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus. Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1985.

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It is mainly in relation to men that we can exercise a ministry of transfiguration. The risen Christ appeared several times under an aspect which was no longer the one his disciples knew. “He appeared in another form…”; the form of a traveler on the road to Emmaus, or of a gardener near the tomb, or of a stranger standing on the shore of the lake. It was each time in the form of an ordinary man such as we may meet in our everyday life.

Jesus thus illustrated an important aspect of his presence among us — his presence in man. He was thus completing what he had taught: “I was an hungered and ye gave me meat. I was thirsty and ye gave me drink... naked and ye clothed me. I was sick, and ye visited me. I was in prison, and ye came unto me… Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Jesus appears now to us under the features of men and women. Indeed this human form is now the only one under which everybody can, at will, at any time and in any place, see the face of Our Lord.

Men of to-day are realistically minded; they do not live on abstractions and phantoms; and, when the saints and the mystics come and tell them: “We have seen the Lord,” they answer with Thomas: “Except I shall... put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Jesus accepts this challenge. He allows Himself to be seen, and touched, and spoken to in the person of all his human brethren and sisters. To us as to Thomas He says: “Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.” Jesus shows us the poor, and the sick, and the sinners, and generally all men, and tells us: “Behold my hands and my feet… Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”

Men and women are the flesh and bones, the hands and feet, the pierced side of Christ — His mystical Body. In them we can experience the reality of the Resurrection and the real presence (though without confusion of essence) of the Lord Jesus. If we do not see Him, it is because of our unbelief and hardheartedness: “Their eyes were holden that they should not know Him.”

Now the Name of Jesus is a concrete and powerful means of transfiguring men into their hidden, innermost, utmost reality. We should approach all men and women — in the street, the shop, the office, the factory, the bus, the queue, and especially those who seem irritating and antipathetic — with the Name of Jesus in our heart and on our lips.

We should pronounce His Name over them all, for their real name is the Name of Jesus. Name them with his Name, within His Name, in a spirit of adoration, dedication and service. Adore Christ in them, serve Christ in them. In many of these men and women — in the malicious, in the criminal — Jesus is imprisoned. Deliver Him by silently recognizing and worshipping Him in them.

If we go through the world with this new vision, saying “Jesus” over every man, seeing Jesus in every man, everybody will be transformed and transfigured before our eyes. The more we are ready to give of ourselves to men, the more will the new vision be clear and vivid. The vision cannot be severed from the gift. Rightly did Jacob say to Esau, when they were reconciled: “I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand, for therefore I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God.”