06 August - The Transfiguration is an episode in the life of Jesus Christ recounted in the New Testament. It is a change in Jesus' bodily appearance for a few moments of his earthly life, to reveal his divine nature to three disciples.
In the Gospels, the Transfiguration takes place after the multiplication of the loaves, at the moment when the disciples, Peter in particular, recognize in him the Messiah. Jesus has already announced once that he must die and rise again three days later, and that he must go to Jerusalem. He will announce it twice more after His Transfiguration. It seems that this episode takes place during the Feast of Tents.
Jesus, going to a mountain with his disciples Peter, James and John, finds himself transformed: the appearance of his face changes and his clothes become brightly white. This description is reminiscent of the description of Moses' descent from Mount Sinai: "The skin of his face shone", (Ex 34:29-30) and that made in the apocalyptic texts of the angels sent by the Lord.
At Jesus' side stand two great biblical figures: Elijah and Moses. According to the tradition of the Catholic Church, the mountain of the place of the Transfiguration refers to Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai, two highly symbolic places in the Old Testament. This hypothesis is corroborated by the presence alongside Christ of Moses and Elijah whose missions are linked to these two places. The cloud from which the Father's voice comes also echoes the cloud that enveloped the Hebrews during the Exodus and their crossing of the desert. St. Peter's proposal to erect three tents also refers, according to some observers, to the tent of meeting in the Old Testament. This feast can be likened to that of the baptism of Christ, where certain points of the Gospel account are found in both (the cloud that envelops Jesus, the "voice of the Father"). For the Church, the immediate purpose of the Transfiguration was "to prepare the hearts of the disciples to overcome the scandal of the cross". The Transfiguration is also a proclamation of the "wonderful adoption which will make all believers sons of God".
