His top three Apostles have been privileged to many things, and tomorrow's reading shows it. They have seen Him transfigured before their eyes, but in a few days will totally deny Him. Our beloved Abbot Gueranger expounds on this:
After the Resurrection our three Apostles made ample atonement for this cowardly and sinful conduct, and acknowledged the mercy wherewith Jesus had sought to fortify them against temptation, by showing them His glory on Mt. Tabor a few days before His Passion. Let us not wait til we have betrayed Him; let us at once acknowledge that He is our Lord and our God. We are soon to be keeping the anniversary of His Sacrifice; like the Apostles, we are to see Him humbled by His enemies and bearing, in our stead, the chastisements of Divine justice. We must not allow our faith to be weakened, when we behold the fulfilment of those prophecies of David and Isias, that the Messias is to be treated as a worm of the earth, and be covered with wounds, so as to become like a leper, the most abject of men, and the Man of sorrows. We must remember the grand things of Mt. Tabor, and the adorations paid Him by Moses and Elias, and the bright cloud, and the Voice of the eternal Father. The more we see His glory and divinity; we must join our acclamations with those of the angels and the twenty four elders, whom St. John, one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration, heard crying out with a loud voice: 'The Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction!'
I will end with the Collect of tomorrow's Mass:
O God, who seest how destitute we are of all strength, preserve us both within and without, that our bodies may be free from all adversity, and our souls purified from all evil thoughts.
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