August VI

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

Mat. 18 Mark 9 Luke 9

Our Divine Redeemer, in order to show us that the sufferings of his servants are usually intermingled with frequent spiritual comforts, and to give us a sensible demonstration of the truth of his promises of an eternal glory reserved for us in the world to come, was pleased to manifest a glimpse of his majesty in the mystery of his Transfiguration. Being in Galilee, about a year before his sacred passion, he chose to be witnesses of his glory the same three beloved disciples who were afterward to be witnesses of his bloody agony in the garden, namely St. Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, SS. James and John. He took three, that their evidence might be unexceptionable; but he would not publicly discover his glory to teach his followers to love the closest secresy in all spiritual graces and favors. All pretences contrary to this rule are suggested by blind self-love, not by the spirit of God; they are a disguised pride, and a dangerous illusion. Every true servant of God loves to be hidden and concealed; his motto in the divine gifts, even when he most ardently invites all creatures to magnify the Lord with him for all His unspeakable mercies, is: My secret to myself, my secret to myself.¹ He fears lest he should be at all considered or thought of in what purely belongs to God alone. Jesus therefore would exhibit this miracle in retirement, and he led these three apostles to a retired mountain, as he was accustomed to repair often to some close solitude to pray. The tradition of the Christians in Palestine, of which St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. John Damascen, and other ancient fathers are vouchers, assures us, that this was mount Thabor, which is exceeding high and beautiful, and was anciently covered with green trees and shrubs, and was very fruitful. It rises something like a sugar loaf, in a vast plain, in the middle of Galilee. This was the place in which the Man-God appeared in his glory. He was transfigured whilst at prayer, because it is usually in this heavenly commerce that the soul receives the dew of divine consolations and tastes how infinitely sweet and good God is to those who sincerely seek him. Many Christians indeed are strangers to this effect of that holy exercise, because they do not apply themselves to it with assiduity and fervor, or neglect to disengage their affections from creatures by perfect humility, self-denial, and mortification of the senses. Without a great purity of heart no man shall see God. A little birdlime entangles the feathers of a bird, and holds down the strongest pinion from being able to raise the body in the air. So the least earthly dust clogs the wings of the soul, the least inordinate attachment to creatures is a weight which hinders the perfect union of her affections with God, and the full flow of his graces upon her; but a Christian worthily disposed and fitted by the Holy Ghost to receive the spirit of prayer, by assiduity in that holy exercise purifies his love more and more, transforms his affections, and renders them more and more spiritual and heavenly. Of this, the Transfiguration of our Divine Redeemer was, among other transcending prerogatives, a most noble and supereminent prototype.

Whilst Jesus prayed he suffered that glory which was always due to his sacred humility, and of which for our sake he deprived it, to diffuse a ray over his whole body. His face was altered, and shone as the sun, and his garments became white as snow. By this glorious transfiguration of his flesh he has animated our hope, that even our bodies will share with our immortal souls in the bliss which he has promised us, and will inherit his glory. Do we often bear in mind this comfortable truth? Can we believe it, and not always be employed in the thoughts of it? Can we think of it, and not be ravished out of ourselves with holy joy? Yes: this heavy lumpish flesh, these infirm corruptible bodies, at present so often subject to sickness, pain, and wants, will one day be raised from the dust glorified, impassible; no more liable to heat, cold, diseases, torment, or tears; beautiful, transcending in lustre and brightness the sun and stars; endued with swiftness beyond that of light, and with strength equal to the angels; with the power of penetrating all bodies, as Christ did the stone of the sepulchre, and the doors when shut; with dazzling glory, with unspeakable pleasure in every part or organ; in a word, with all the communicable gifts and qualities of spirits, resembling the body of Christ glorified after his resurrection, which, as St. Paul tells us, is the model upon which ours shall be raised in glory. A glimpse of all this appeared in the splendor wherewith his adorable humanity was clothed in his Transfiguration.

Moses and Elias were seen by the three apostles in his company on this occasion, and were heard discoursing with him of the death which he was to suffer in Jerusalem. Moses represented the ancient patriarchs, and the first saints who lived under the law; Elias the later prophets; and they showed by their presence that all the just inspired by God from the beginning had given testimony to Christ as the true Messias. They had both been remarkable for their sufferings in the cause of virtue, Elias having been exceedingly persecuted by the wicked, and Moses having chosen rather to be afflicted with the people of God than to enjoy the greatest honors and pleasures of Pharaoh’s court; and the cross being the constant object of the most ardent desires of our blessed Redeemer out of the excess of his love for us, they spoke to him of nothing but of the stripes, thorns, reproaches, and cruel death which he was to suffer. Our loving Saviour, in part to moderate his ardor to complete his sacrifice by the triumph of his love in his death on the cross, had made it frequently the subject of his conversation with his disciples, and even in this joyful mystery would entertain himself and the witnesses of his glory upon it. If we truly consider and understand the spiritual fruits and glory of mortification and suffering for Christ, we shall rejoice in wearing the livery of our crucified Redeemer. The three apostles were wonderfully delighted with this glorious vision, and St. Peter cried out to Christ: Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tents, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias. This he spoke not knowing what he said, being out of himself in a transport of holy admiration and joy; desiring never to be drawn from the sight of so glorious an object, and never to lose that sweetness and delight with which his soul was then overwhelmed. He truly knew not what he said, or he would never have desired that for the time of trial on earth which is reserved only for heaven. Neither would he have contented himself with beholding only the glorified humanity of Christ, which vision can bear no proportion to the beatific contemplation of the divinity itself. He tasted only a single drop of that over flowing river which inebriates the heavenly Jerusalem, and all its blessed inhabitants; yet was so much transported by it. What would he then have said if he had received into his soul the whole impetuous torrents of heavenly delights? He who has once tasted that spiritual sweetness which God sometimes bestows on souls in this life to strengthen their weakness, and to attract them to his love by the sweet odor of his ointments, must ever after live in bitterness, alleviated only by resignation and love, till he arrive at the fountain itself, which is God. No wonder therefore that St. Peter, after this foretaste, was unwilling to return again to the earth. How little do the lovers of the world know the incomparable sweetness of divine love, or they would despise from their hearts those toys for which they deprive themselves of so great a good! Yet so depraved is the taste of many by their passions, that they would be content, were it possible, always to live here, and never think of the joys of heaven. “How can it be good for us to be here,” cries out St. Bernard,² “where everything in worldly pursuits is tedious, empty, or dangerous? Here is much malice, and very little wisdom, if even a little. Here all things are slippery and treacherous, covered with darkness, and full of snares, where souls are exposed to continual danger of perishing, the spirit sinks under affliction, and nothing is found but vanity and trouble of mind.” To the just this life is the time of trials and labor heaven is our place of rest, our eternal sabbath, where our patience and tears will find their reward exceeding great. Why do we seek repose before the end of our warfare?

Whilst St. Peter was speaking, there came, on a sudden, a bright shining cloud from heaven, an emblem of the presence of God’s majesty, and from out of this cloud was heard a voice which said: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. By this testimony the Father declared Christ his only begotten and co-eternal Son, sent by him into the world to be the remedy of our sins, our advocate and our propitiation, through whom alone we can find access to his offended majesty. If through him we approach the throne of his mercy, we cannot be rejected, he being in his humanity the object of the infinite complacency of the Father: through him we are invited to apply with confidence for mercy and every good gift. By the same voice the Father also declared him the perfect model of our virtues, and commands us to hear him, and attend to his example, in order to square by it our lives, and to form in our souls a new spirit grounded upon the pattern he hath set us of humility, meekness, charity, and patience. He commands us also to listen with the utmost respect and docility to his saving and most holy doctrine, which is the word of eternal life. The apostles that were present, upon hearing this voice, were seized with a sudden fear and fell upon the ground; but Jesus, going to them, touched them, and bade them to rise. They immediately did so, and saw no one but Jesus standing in his ordinary state. This vision happened in the night. As they went down the mountain early the next morning, Jesus gave them a charge not to discover to any one what they had seen till he should be risen from the dead. The Jews were unworthy to hear what many among them would have only blasphemed, and they had sufficient evidence by his miracles, to which they wilfully shut their eyes; but Jesus would by this give us a fresh lesson of humility, and teach us that secresy with regard to divine graces, and the exercise of all extraordinary virtues, is the guardian of those gifts.

From the contemplation of this glorious mystery we ought to conceive a true idea of future happiness; if this once possess our souls, it will make us not to value any difficulties or labors we can meet with here, but to regard with great indifference all the goods and evils of this life, provided we can but secure our portion in the kingdom of God’s glory. Thabor is our encouragement by setting that bliss before our eyes, but Calvary is the way that leads to it. When Christ shall let us into the secrets of his love and cross, and make us taste that interior sweetness and secure peace which he hath hidden therein, and which the world knoweth not, then we shall find a comfort and joy in our sufferings themselves, and with St. Paul we shall think of nothing but of loving, and suffering in what manner it shall please God to make us tread in the footsteps of his divine Son, being solicitous only to walk in the continual exercise of pure love. The ninety-fourth sermon of St. Leo which is on this mystery, shows this festival to have been observed at Rome in the middle of the fifth century. Pope Calixtus III. made it more universal and solemn by a bull dated in 1457.

St. Xystus, or Sixtus II. Pope and Martyr

He was a Grecian by birth, deacon of the Roman Church under St. Stephen, and upon his demise, in 257, was chosen pope, being the 25th from St. Peter. St. Dionysius of Alexandria consulted him by three letters on certain difficulties, and recommended to him to bear a little while with the Africans and some among the Asiatics with regard to their error concerning the validity of baptism given by heretics. Accordingly this pope used towards them indulgence, contenting himself with strongly recommending the truth to them; and his successors pursued the same conduct till that error was condemned in the plenary council often mentioned by St. Austin.* St. Sixtus is styled by St. Cyprian a peaceable and excellent prelate. Though some have ascribed eight years to his pontificate, it is certain from all the circumstances of his history, that he only sat one year.¹

Gallus, the successor of Decius in the empire, and a persecutor of the Christians, being despised for his cowardice, was slain with his son and colleague Volusius in 253, after having reigned eighteen months. Æmilius then assumed the title of emperor; but was killed after he had reigned four months, without having been acknowledged by the senate; and Valerianus, a person of a noble family, and great reputation, who had been censor and chief of the senate, was acknowledged emperor by the consent of the whole world. He was at first more favorable to the Christians than any of the emperors before him had been, not excepting the Philips; and his palace was full of religious persons. By this means the Church enjoyed peace during three years and a half; which tranquillity afforded an opportunity of holding many councils; but in 257 Valerian raised the eighth, or, according to Sulpicius Severus, the ninth general persecution, which continued three years and a half, till he was taken prisoner by the Persians. The change wrought in this emperor is ascribed by Eusebius to a motive of superstition, and to the artifices and persuasion of one Macrianus, who was extremely addicted to the Persian sect of the Magians, and to the black art. This man, whom St. Dionysius of Alexandria calls the archmagian of Egypt, had worked himself into the highest favor with the superstitious emperor, was raised by him to the first dignities of the state, and persuaded him that the Christians, by being avowed enemies to art magic, and to the gods, obstruct the effects of the sacrifices, and the prosperity of his empire. Valerian had reason to tremble for his own safety upon the pinnacle of his honors; for some compute that only six, out of thirty emperors, that had reigned from Augustus to his time, had escaped the violent hands of murderers; but, by declaring himself an enemy to the servants of God, he dug a pit for his own ruin. He published his first edict against them in April, 257, which was followed by the martyrdom of pope Stephen and many others.

The persecution grew much more fierce in the following year, when Valerian marching into the East against the Persians, sent a new rescript to the senate to be passed into a law, the tenor and effect of which St. Cyprian notified to his fellow bishops in Africa as follows:²—“Valerian has sent an order to the senate, importing that bishops, priests, and deacons should forthwith suffer” (even although they should be willing to conform), “but that senators, persons of quality, and Roman knights should forfeit their honors, should have their estates forfeited, and if they still refused to sacrifice, should lose their heads: that matrons should have their goods seized, and be banished: that any of Cæsar’s officers or domestics who had already confessed the Christian faith, or should now confess it, should forfeit their estates to the exchequer, and should be sent in chains to work in Cæsar’s farms.^† To this order the emperor subjoined a copy of the letter which he hath despatched to the presidents of the several provinces concerning us: which letter I expect, and hope will soon be brought hither.—You are to understand that Xystus (bishop of Rome) suffered in a cemetery upon the 6th day of August, and with him Quartus. The officers of Rome are very intent upon this persecution; and the persons who are brought before them are sure to suffer, and to forfeit their estates to the exchequer. Pray notify these particulars to my colleagues, that so our brethren may everywhere be prepared for their great conflict; that we may all think rather of immortality than death, and derive more joy than fear or terror from this confession, in which we know that the soldiers of Christ are not so properly killed as crowned.”

St. Xystus suffered in a cemetery; for the Christians, in the times of persecution, resorted to those subterraneous caverns to celebrate the divine mysteries. Here they met, though Valerian had forbidden them to hold assemblies, and here they were hunted out. Quartus must have been a priest or deacon; otherwise he would not have suffered upon the spot, but been first pressed by the rack to sacrifice. Some think this name Quartus a slip of the copiers, and read this passage as follows: “with four deacons;”* for, say these authors, about that time four deacons suffered at Rome, Prætextatus, Felicissimus and Agapitus, with their bishop, as the Liberian and other ancient Calendars testify; and Laurence, who suffered soon after him. This last was his archdeacon, and seeing him led to execution, expostulated with him, lamenting to be left behind.³ “St. Sixtus replied that he should follow him within three days, by a more glorious triumph; himself being spared on account of his old age.” Those are mistaken who say that St. Sixtus was crucified; for the Liberian Calendar assures us, that he was beheaded in the cemetery of Calixtus, and the __EXPRESSION__ which St. Cyprian uses signifies the same. St. Cyprian suffered in the September following; and all the provinces of the empire were watered with the blood of innumerable martyrs.^† For though Valerian’s first edicts regarded chiefly the clergy, they were soon extended to the whole body of Christians; old and young, men, women and children; and great numbers of every condition, rich and poor, soldiers, husbandmen, slaves, and even children, were put to cruel deaths, as Eusebius,⁴ St. Cyprian,⁵ and the ancient Martyrologies testify.

SS. Justus and Pastor, MM.

They were two brothers, who in their tender age overcame, with an heroic courage, the rage and power of Dacian, armed with all the instruments of cruelty. This judge was governor of Spain under Dioclesian and Maximian, and one of the most furious ministers of their cruelty in persecuting the Christians. In his progress through his province in search of the servants of the true God, he arrived at Complutum, now called Alcala de Henares, and having caused the bloody edicts to be read in the market-place, began to put to the most exquisite tortures the Christians that were brought before him. Justus and Pastor, children who were then learning the first elements of literature in the public school of that city (the first being thirteen, the latter only seven years old), hearing of the torments which were inflicted on the generous soldiers of Christ, were fired with a holy zeal to have a share in their triumphs. They threw down their books, ran to the place where the governor was interrogating the confessors, and by their behavior about the racks and other engines on which the martyrs were tormented, gave manifest proofs of the holy faith which they professed. They were soon taken notice of, apprehended, and presented to the judge. He foamed with rage to see children brave his power and authority, and not doubting but a little correction would allay their courage, commanded them to be most severely whipped. This was executed in the most barbarous manner; but he who makes the tongues of infants eloquent in his praise, gave them strength to baffle all the efforts of the world and hell. The soldiers and spectators were filled with astonishment to see the modest constancy with which in their turns they encouraged and exhorted each other to bear their torments for Christ, and for an eternal crown: and the wonderful cheerfulness and readiness which they discovered to suffer every torture that could be inflicted. The judge, being informed that it was in vain to expect their resolution could ever be vanquished by torments, to cover his shame, gave an order that they should be privately beheaded. This sentence was executed in a field near the town, and their bodies were buried by the Christians on that very spot which their blood had sanctified. A chapel was afterward built on the place. Their relics are at present enshrined under the high altar of a great collegiate church at Alcala, of which they are the titular patrons. Their martyrdom happened in 304. See Prudentius, hymn. 4, alias 7. St. Isidore, F. Flores, &c.

¹ Isa. 24:16.

² S. Bern. Serm. 6, in Ascens.

* By this plenary council, Launoy, Sirmond, and Albaspinæus understand the council of Arles, assemoied out of all the West in 314; but Bellarmin, Natalis Alexander, &c., explain it more probably of the council of Nice, because St. Austin calls a plenary council of the whole world.

¹ See Berti, Diss. 1, in Sæc. 3, p. 172.

² S. Cyprian, ep. ad Successum episc. 80, Fello. 32, Pamelio.

^† It is well known in the Cæsarean law what sort of servitude that was which the Adscriptitil Glebes were under, they being slaves employed in the meanest drudgery of tillage.

* A mistake of the contraction quartus for quatuor is an old MS. was very easy. This is the conjecture of Baluze. “Xystum in cœmeterio animadversum sciatis, 8vo. Id. Aug. et cum eo diaconos quatuor.” S. Cypr. loc. cit. ed. Baluz.

³ S. Ambros. Offic. l. 1, c. 41.

^† This fierce persecution was continued during the last three years and a half of Valerian’s reign. Most flourishing was the condition of his empire till he drew his sword against those whose prayers were the protection of the state. They still prayed for those who most unjustly persecuted them; but God revenged their cause, even in this world. No sooner did this war break out against them, but the provinces became on every side a prey to barbarians. Valerian marched first against the Goths and Scythians, who poured in upon the empire from the north; but the terrible devastations committed by the Persians in Cilicia, Cappadocia, and other provinces of the east, called him on that side. Finding his affairs there in a bad condition, he was for purchasing a peace for money of Sapor I. the son of Artaxerxes, who having revolted with the Persians and slain Artabanus, the last king of Parthia, had erected upon the ruins of that empire the second Persian monarchy in 226. Sapor refused to treat with any other person but the emperor himself, who imprudently ventured his person with but few attendants. The barbarian caused him to be surrounded, and seized him prisoner, and as long as Valerian lived, made use of him for a footstool or horseblock, making him stoop and setting his foot upon his neck whenever he mounted on horseback. He led him everywhere about in triumph, loaded with chains, and clad in purple and all the imperial ornaments. Valerian was taken in the seventh year of his reign, the seventy-sixth of his age, of Christ 259, and he lived thus seven years in captivity. Agathias says, that at length Sapor caused him to be flayed alive, and rubbed over with salt; but this seems only to have been done after his death, when the Persian had his skin pickled, dyed red, and hung up in a temple to be afterward shown to the Roman ambassadors whenever they should come into Persia. The pagan Romans seemed little concerned at his misfortune, or their own disgrace, and his unnatural son Gallien used no great efforts for his liberty, though, after his death, he caused him to be enrolled among the gods; and the heathen Romans had always regarded him as one of their best emperors.

The Christians looked upon this catastrophe as an effect of divine vengeance upon this unjust persecutor of the saints. Lactantius writes of it as follows: “Not long after Decius Valerian was inflamed with the like rage, and in a very little time he shed a great deal of the blood of the saints. But God afflicted him with a new sort of judgment. He was taken prisoner by the Persians, and not only lost the empire, but as he had robbed many others of their liberty, so he lost his own at last, and fell under a most infamous slavery. For, as often as king Sapor had occasion either to mount on horseback, or to go into his chariot, he made the Roman emperor stoop down that he might make his back a step to get up. And whereas the Romans had made some representations of the Persians being defeated by then., Sapor used to rally Valerian, and to tell him, that the posture in which he lay was in more real proof to show on whose side the victory went, than all the pictures that the Romans could make. Valerian, being inured about in triumph, lived for some time, so that the barbarians had in him occasion given for a great while to treat the very name of a Roman with all possible indignity and scorn. And this was the heightening of his misery, that though he had a son, upon whom the empire had devolved by his misfortune, yet no care was taken by the son either to rescue the father, or to revenge his ill usage. After he had ended his infamous life, his skin was flayed off his body, and both it and his guts being tinctured with a red coloring, they were hung up in one of the temples of the Persian gods, to be a perpetual remembrance of so remarkable a triumph, by which they might always put such Roman ambassadors as should be sent among them in mind of it, and from so unusual a sight, warn them not to presume too much upon their own strength, but to remember Valerian’s fall.”

Gallien, his son and successor, terrified by so dreadful an example of the divine vengeance, as Orosius says, restored peace to the Church. He led a life of debauchery and supine indolence, whilst thirty tyrants in different parts of the world assumed the purple, and were at war with one another. Macrianus, the magician, by whose advice Valerian had persecuted the Church, was one of this number, but was slain the first of them with his two sons. Olenatus, a Saracen, king of Palmyra in Syria, repressed the insolence of the Persians; for which service Gallien declared him his colleague in the empire, allotting to him all the East, and giving to his wife Zenobia the title of Augusta. After the death of her husband she became queen of the East, and is celebrated for her extraordinary wisdom, learning, and valor. The empire was at the same time visited with a dreadful pestilence, which depopulated its provinces; and the barbarians on all sides poured in upon it like a torrent, which, hiving broken down its banks, impetuously spreads itself over the whole country. Nor could those nations be any more contined to their snows and mountains; but, in the end, they overthrew that empire which had formerly thought them not worth a conquest. The saints shared in these public calamities; but, by their charity, resignation, and patience, found in them solid comfort and joy, and by them attained to their crown. God converted all things to the good of his elect. Gallien was murdered in 268, alter an ignominious reign of nine years from the captivity of his father. His successor Claudius II., surnamed Gothicus, a prince of moderation and wisdom, continued to suspend the edicts of former persecutors during the two years that he reigned, but, after his death, Aurelian raised the ninth general persecution. Nevertheless, that some received the crown of martyrdom in the reign of Claudius Gothicus, is evident from the holy martyr St. Severa, whose body was found in the cemetery of SS. Thraso and Saturninus, on the Salarian way, one mile from Rome in 1730. See the dissertation of F. Lupi on that martyr’s tomb and epitaph, printed at Panormo in 1734 also the remarks of and learned canons Boldetti and Maragnoni.

⁴ L. 7, c. 11.

⁵ Ep. 77, Pam. alias 70.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, pp. 329–336). New York: P. J. Kenedy.