Reflection for the Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August 2020

As a newly ordained Curate, I remember my Vicar talking about to me about time. Time he said comes in two forms: Chronos (the human perception of time); and Kairos (time in the context of eternity and the divine, time as God sees it). We live, eat and breathe in Chronos time. Chronos time can seem to flow, sometimes fast, sometimes flow, but flow onward like a river it seems to do forwards and towards an end. Kairos time is different, when we step into Kairos time we step into the eternal. It can happen in a moment, expected or unexpected, perhaps when stepping into an ancient church, a place where in the words of the poet T.S. Elliot

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On Thursday the Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration is a moment of Kairos time breaking into Chronos time. Suddenly the three disciples see Jesus as he actually is, and as they too will become, that as he is transfigured by a glorious light. And there with him are Moses and Elijah, the two greatest prophets of Israel talking with Jesus. (In eternity there is no ‘time’ because eternity is without beginning or ending, thus there is no static moment from which to measure the passing of time.) These two men are caught up in eternity (Kairos time), therefore they can be present together, even if Moses pre-deceased Elijah by a few 100 years. In the Transfiguration then we get a momentary perception into the heavenly reality, of being taken out of Chronos and into Kairos time.

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Whilst there is a certain correspondence between these two events, the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not an entering of Kairos into Chronos time, but of humankind’s ability to destroy itself. In the Transfiguration we see Christ as he is, and as we too will become through the transforming power of his Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection. In the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki we see how fragile we are, and how fragile science has made our existence, of how easily we can use a transfiguring, creating power as one of ultimate destruction

But I would like us to focus on the Transfiguration, even as we remember the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In that moment of deifying transcendence we and the disciples see the heavenly reality breaking into the our earthly one, of Kairos time breaking into our Chronos time. In the Transfiguration we see Jesus as he truly is (that is in glory). But we also see ourselves as will become in the context of eternity and salvation, because as St Athanasius writes of the Incarnation, of Christ becoming human:

St Seraphim of Sarov

This 'divinisation' as the Orthodox call it is a very real one. On 2-3 occasions I have met people whose lives seem to shine with the light of God. One saint whose life was literally, and physically aglow was that of St Seraphim of Sarov, Priest and Wonder Worker of Russia. There is a story of St Seraphim, who spent much of his life living as a hermit. He was visited by a friend, as they were praying together his friend noticed that St Seraphim seem to be transfigured. When he told the saint what he had seen, St Seraphim said that he would not have been the transfiguring light if he himself was not also being transfigured.

Such transfiguring light is at work in each of us, and it is through prayer, study, service,2 and attending the Mass that the light of Christ changes and transfigures us.