TRANS:

A WONDERFUL PREFIX

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Trans:  [T R A N S]:  A Wonderful Prefix.”

Today, being the feast of the TRANSfiguration, that’s the thought that hit me.

There are some neat religious and spiritually uplifting words beginning with the prefix TRANS. For example: transcend, transform, transparent, transpire, and for us Catholics, transubstantiation.

For the sake of transparency, there can be negative words with trans in them. There’s  sin. It has been called a transgression. A person does a nasty - an aggression or crosses over a boundary and hurts another and themselves. That’s a transgression.

PREFIX

A prefix means goes before - PRE - a short beginning part  of a word that - indicates what’s happening - so trans means going across, going beyond, going through to the other side.  So we have words like transportation, transfer,  transalpine, transcontinental, transatlantic, transoceanic.

So here in Christ’s story - we’re given a looksee into the beyond, into the holy - into  who Christ is - and how he can take us into the next.

IN ISRAEL

In Israel there is a mountain called “The Mount of the Transfiguration.”

In the year 2000 I went to Israel  - being asked by our provincial  - to chaperone Leo there  - an older priest whom I was stationed with.  Leo never went anywhere, so our provincial, George, knowing how much Leo loved the Bible - that he would love a trip to the Holy Land, but would never ask, pushed him to go and got him someone to carry his suitcase.

Me.  Wonderful.

So we took British Airlines - BA - on a transatlantic flight from Kennedy to Heathrow in England and then a transeuropean or transmediterannean flight down to Israel - and we saw it all.

One day we had a trip by bus to the Mount of the Transfiguration. We went to the base of the mountain and then 25 priests - we were on a priests retreat - headed up the mountain in white Mercedes cabs.

We had Mass in the small church up there - then we each made an holy hour - in silence.  I spotted a house with a ladder up to a roof so I climbed it. What a view! What a spot for some quiet time - and it had a nice chair for relaxing, listening and seeing.  

Then we had a spaghetti dinner in a Franciscan monastery up there.

The whole experience of Israel was super. I had a day where I could say, “I’ve been to the mountain”. I also had a day in Nazareth, a day on the Lake of Galilee, a day in Capernaum, , then Jericho Dead Sea and then finishing up in Jerusalem. It was a transfiguring moment for me.  Reading the Gospels from then on, I read them in a new way.  So I too can say of my trip to Israel, “Lord it is good that I was there ….”

I saw so much in a new light.  That’s transfiguring. That’s transfiguration.

CONCLUSION

The goal of the Christian life is to be one with Christ. It’s to be pictured with Christ. It's to go figuring with Christ. It's to be transfigured with Christ.  So why not start walking anew with him into every scene - well a lot of scenes - and notice how a lot of what we see will be transfigured.