Elder Sophrony on the Light of Christ's Transfiguration

The Holy Transfiguration of Christ (source)

  
"Behold, the bright cloud covered them, and behold, a voice from the cloud said: This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him." (Matthew 16:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:35)

Today, on the occasion of the great festival of our Church, a festival which corresponds with the depth of our approach, as we come close to the end of our earthly life, and is not only not diminished, but ceaselessly increases in power and grandeur within us, forgetting, in some manner, our weakness, we are so bold to speak about the inapproachable and never-setting Light that shown on Mount Tabor.

I entreat you, look away at this hour from my nothingness--close your eyes to my unlettered and ungainly word, and instead, if it were possible, perceive me as one of the protectors of Mount Ephraim, that cried out: "Rise up, and let us ascend to Sion towards our Lord God."

And besides all of these, we are poor in spirit. Within the bounds of the earth there is insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst for the knowledge of God, for our struggle is to reach the Unapproachable, to behold the Invisible, to come to know Him Who is found beyond any knowledge.

This momentum increases ceaselessly in every man, when the Light of the Godhead is pleased to shine upon him, albeit somewhat dimly in His approach, for therefore to our noetic eyes is revealed in what abyss we remain. This vision astonishes the whole person, and then the soul does not know rest and cannot find it, until it is freed fully from the darkness in which it is held, until it is filled with the Insatiable Food, until that Light increases in the soul and is united together with it, until Light and soul become one, proclaiming beforehand of our vision of Divine glory.

The Transfiguration of the Lord serves as the firm foundation of our hope for the transformation of our whole life--which now is full of struggle, afflictions, fear--into a life that is incorrupt and God-like. In these, this ascent to the high Mountain of the Transfiguration is linked with great struggle."
  
(from a Sermon on the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Taborean Light, by Elder Sophrony Sakarov, (source))

 

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!