Saturday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
“He charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone”
Today, the Transfiguration in Mark's Gospel presents us an already solved enigma. Saint Mark's evangelic texts are full of messianic secrets, of isolated moments where Jesus forbids telling no one what He might have done. Today, and right here, we have a “sample”. When Jesus “he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (Mk 9:9).
But, what, does this Messianic Secret consist of? The messianic secret consists in lifting the veil a little to slightly reveal what is hidden below; for the whole mystery will only be totally uncovered, in the light of his Paschal Mystery, when Jesus' last days are over. We can see it clearly in this Gospel: Transfiguration is just a moment, a taste of glory, to give the apostles the possibility to decipher the meaning of that intimate moment.
Jesus had announced his disciples the imminent moment of His Passion, but upon seeing them so perturbed because of his tragic final, He explains with words and facts how his last days would be: days of passion and death, but days that will be over with his resurrection. Here is the enigma unraveled. Saint Thomas Aquinas says: “To properly walk one's way it takes one to know first, somehow, the target one is aiming at.”
Our Christian lives have also an aim uncovered by our Lord Jesus Christ: to enjoy God's unfailing love forever and ever. But this target will not be lacking in moments of sacrifice and crucial pains. However, we have to remember the live message of today's Gospel: in this apparent blind alley which, so often, seems to be our life, because of our fidelity to God, and while spending our life immerse and living in the spirit of the Beatitudes, the tragic ending will be cracked to give way to our enjoying God eternally.