OUR HIDDEN GOD

A MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF TRANSFIGURATION

The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity has been hidden from us in one way or another since the beginning of Creation, where he acts as the unseen Word of God by whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing that was made.  Throughout the Old Testament he remains hidden in the words of the prophets and the untold number of shadowings and prefigurations that point to his coming.

When we turn the Bible’s pages and begin the Gospels, we find him first of all hidden within the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where he begins to dwell amongst us, and from which he sanctifies the unborn soul of his cousin St. John Baptist.  Even after his birth in Bethlehem’s humble stable, he is wrapped in swaddling clothes, the majesty of his divinity concealed within this outer wrapper that symbolizes his human nature.  We see Christ walking amongst his people, and yet what did those people really see?  A human figure like them, walking, talking, eating, suffering and dying like them.  Their human vision was not sufficient to penetrate the divine nature of God that co-existed in that human framework.

With the fulfillment of the New Testament at the Last Supper and on Calvary, that same deceased human nature was hidden in the tomb, awaiting its resurrection from the dead.  And even then, his glorious body concealed itself from his disciples, as time after time, they failed to recognize their risen Lord.  Eventually, he ascended into heaven, and the veil that separates heaven and earth once again shrouded the mystery of the divine nature.

It is no different today.  The Son of God is hidden from us in the Holy Eucharist, both the divine and human nature masked under the form of bread and wine.

In all of human history, only three men have seen the true divine form of God.  In a foretaste of the beatific vision, which, by the grace of God, one day we shall all enjoy, Saints Peter, James and John were taken up Mount Tabor to witness the transfigured nature of God’s divine Son.  This most wonderful event is commemorated tomorrow in the Feast of the Transfiguration, on which we anticipate our future glorious vision of God, when we shall see God no longer as through a glass darkly, but then, face to face.