THE
P RTAL
August 2017
Page 9
The Transfiguration,
the Assumption and
the moral teaching
of the Church
Fr Julian Green explains an important link
T wo great
feast days stand out in August: the Transfiguration on the 6th and the Assumption on
the 15th. While each of these feast days celebrates a specific mystery, they are united together as they
reveal something of our human nature.
The human nature, united to the divine nature in the
one person of Jesus Christ, is seen on the mountain
of the Tabor to be transformed by light. It is a sign of
future glory to help the disciples in the trying pathway
of faith which they had to tread through the passion
and death of their Saviour. But it is more than that. In
the Transfiguration, we also see an image of glorified
humanity, which Jesus claims at his Resurrection.
those great words: “I am the Resurrection and the Life”,
which he follows up with the assurance that whoever
lives, believing in him, will never die.
Far from being the far off hope of Martha, the Lord
tells us that if we live in faith, we already live this risen
life. This means that it matters what I do with my body.
This mortal body is different in nature to the risen body
which we will have for eternity. St Paul wisely says, we
It is this same transformed human nature that we do not know what we shall be like in the future. But
already share in by baptism, but which will be revealed this body has the same identity – it is our body – as the
body we will have at the end of time. And so, the life we
in us in the resurrection of the body.
live in this world in this body is already a share in the
In Our Lady’s Assumption, we see the evidence life we will have one day when Christ will come again.
of this transformation. Mary, fully human but full
So, this is why it is the foundation of the moral
of God’s grace, is given an immediate share in the
fullness of the risen life of her Son at the end of her life. teaching of the Church: we should strive to live in
Just as the Lord reveals the glory of the resurrection our bodies a life which reveals the new life of the
life at the Transfiguration to give courage and hope resurrection, and not live according to the flesh, which
to his disciples, so Our Lady stands as the revelation is bound for decay.
of the glory which we will share in the resurrection
This is teaching which goes clean contrary to the
of the dead, to give courage and hope to us, who are
on the pilgrim way, a path which sometimes seems trends which we are seeing in our country at the
moment. Only recently has a Secretary of State
disheartening.
proclaimed that the government is planning to change
The whole of the moral teaching of the Church is the law so that anyone can define who and what they
founded upon the fact that we are called to live this are in terms of ‘gender’, clean contrary to their DNA
resurrection life already, here and now, in this world. and physical sex. And more than that: to give the full
The calling of Christian life is to live according to the force of the law to defend those who would so define
spirit rather than the flesh; that is, to live here and now themselves against the ‘hate’ of those who would
according to the resurrection life which is in us, rather question the possibility.
than according to our untransformed human nature
The Church is told to mind its own business, and
which we receive from Adam.
deal with the ‘spiritual’. And yet the physical human
In speaking to Martha, in John 11, we see how our nature is also the Church’s concern. And the truth of
Lord asks her: “Do you believe in the resurrection?” who we are as humans is not true only because it is
Oh yes, she says, she believes in the resurrection which Church teaching. It is the Church’s teaching, because
will happen at the end of time. Then the Lord says it is true.