Transfiguration, Small Whispers and the Epiclesis

Transfiguration, Small Whispers and the Epiclesis

By Karen L. Howard, Ph.D.

In the last few weeks, peoples all over the world celebrated the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, that famous Spanish mystic and founder of the Jesuits.  This past Sunday, we also celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration, and homilists that same world over,  were trying to craft a few words of inspiration about the Transfiguration of Christ and how we are all called to recognize the Christ, and transform our lives to be more like his.  Pedro Arrupe, the former provincial of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983, who went home to God in 1991, wrote a text to his fellow Jesuits celebrating Ignatius’ devotion to the Sacred Heart (In Him Alone Is Our Hope) and how the Jesuits were to move forward after Vatican II to help transform the world to Christ.  In 1978, Arrupe wrote that they needed to establish an Apostolate of Prayer, and focus on three aspects of prayer: that of the life of the individual, that of the social plane of the Church and that of the Eucharistic transformation of the world.  He wrote of the Eucharistic character of such an endeavor and the laity’s part in that, quoting a passage from the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium:

All their works (laity’s), prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary and married family life, their daily labor, their mental and physical relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even in the hardships of life, if patiently borne – all of these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (cf. Peter 2:5).  During the celebration of the Eucharist, these sacrifices are most lovingly offered to the Father along with the Lord’s Body.  Thus as worshippers whose every deed is holy, the laity consecrate the world to God (LG, 34).

This consecration of the world, he wrote, is a transformation and a sanctification. (p. 36)

Arrupe also quoted Gaudium et Spes, the other Church document of Vatican II, where it outlines the communal character of this transformation:

The Lord left behind a pledge of this hope and strength for life’s journey in that sacrament where natural elements refined by man are changed into his glorified body and blood, providing a meal of brotherly solidarity and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet (GS, 38).

Certainly, one of the seismic shifts of Vatican II was the recognition and rediscovery of the communal dimension of who we are as a Christian people.  The “me and God” mentality of the pre-Vatican church was stretched as we began to recognize that every action, good or bad, impacted the life of the Church and the building of the kingdom.  This weekend we mark the 30th anniversary of a hymn – a hymn that was sung before St. John Paul II at the World Youth Day in 1993 by Dana Scanlon: ”We Are One Body --   one body in Christ and we do not stand alone!”  It couldn’t have been said better.

Our spiritual growth and that of the kingdom are tied to each other as much as they are tied to our God.  We are a beatitude people.  The Spirit prays through us for we do not know how to pray (Rom. 8:26).  In this current climate of Eucharistic renewal and accents on the “Real Presence,” we might consider paying closer attendance to the epiclesis at every Mass, for that one moment in the liturgy when we call directly on the Spirit to transform the elements before us into the real body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ.  The Catechism tells us that the Holy Spirit not only recalls the mystery of Christ at Mass, but makes it present (CCC, #1104).  The Christian liturgy actualizes the mystery by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  It is that same Spirit, however, that prays through us and that transforms us.  When we pray: “send down your Spirit,” we pray not only that the Spirit descend on those elements before us, the bread and wine, but that the Spirit descend on us and transform us, transfigure us into the Body and Blood of Christ, that we may become more and more the Body and Blood of Christ on earth, that we may become Christ for each other, and that we may begin to more clearly recognize Christ in each other.  In the Alexandrian Basil, one of the ancient Eastern rites of the Eucharist, a single epiclesis after the Words of Institution included a petition that the Holy Spirit sanctify both the gifts and the community.  That secondary, communal dimension is maintained today in the Roman Canon in Eucharistic Prayer I.

Arrupe encouraged each of us to look for the hidden quiet work of the Spirit and allow the Spirit to transform us, not unlike the whisperings Elijah heard on the mountain top: 

We are able to discern this hidden action of the Spirit by looking at the signs of the times.  The world, social phenomenon, the course of human history, are as it were a book written by two authors, the Spirit of God and human liberty, united in collaboration and forming a community which is a true mystery. . . .and that “we know that all creation is groaning in birth pains” (Romans 8:27).

Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we beg: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and we try to mesh our intentions with that of our Creator’s intentions.  We are invited through our baptisms to accept those intentions.

Jesus repeatedly goes up to the mountain top to pray alone in the gospels – to Mt. Tabor before the Transfiguration, and again this weekend, before he comes walking on the water to the frightened disciples.  What goes on in Jesus’ prayer?  Have we ever thought about that?  How does Jesus approach the Father if not through the quiet whisperings of the Spirit?

Father Arrupe said the Jesuits moving forward from Vatican II needed to pay attention to people’s individual growth and the social plane of the Church, but he also said that only through Eucharistic renewal will the world be transformed.  We are in the midst of a worldwide Eucharistic Renewal today.  How do we pray when we go to this mountain top?  How do we recognize the quiet whisperings of the Holy Spirit during every Mass?  I would suggest that we all might enter more deeply into the mystery if we paid more attention to the Epiclesis at each holy Mass and listen more closely to what we are requesting of our Holy Spirit.  Transform us, Lord God, that we may each become more Christ-like, a prayer of praise, a song of praise . . . “We are one Body, one Body in Christ!”