The Transfiguration is about faith,
about the faith of our Lord's apostles,
Peter, James, and John,
who were taken with him upon the mountain.
And there they see our Lord transfigured before them
so that they will not be scandalized later
by our Lord's suffering and death.
They have to know that he has power,
that he is more,
than he appears to be,
so that they see in him
the confirmation of his own words,
so that they see that the miracles that he worked
of curing others and raising them from the dead
and casting out devils
was a power that also would be applied to his own self,
to his own body in the tomb.
They needed this strength because they lacked in faith,
and our Lord wanted them
to have faith,
to have that faith,
not only so they would be standing with him
in solidarity in his last moments,
but so that they could also walk in his footsteps.
Later on, he would have many things
that he would expect of them.
He told Peter after the resurrection,
when you were young, you went where you will.
When you are old, others will bind you
and take you where you do not want to go.
And so he was strengthening them all here
on the mountain of transfiguration,
hoping that they would heed his words
and follow in his footsteps.
Unless you pick up your cross and carry it,
you cannot be my disciple.
Of course, we know that they failed to a large extent.
John was there on Good Friday.
Peter betrayed our Lord,
and largely most of our Lord's friends
were,
were not there on Good Friday.
It was only later that their faith was strengthened
and they were able to emulate our Lord
by walking in his footsteps.
Today we celebrate the memorial
of the seven founders of the Servite Order,
who founded the Order as the servants of Mary.
They wanted to serve Our Lady in a very particular way,
and they had a devotion to Our Lady
under the title of Her Seven Sorrows.
And they promoted devotion to the Seven Sorrows
in a particular way through the recitation of the Rosary
of the Seven Sorrows.
And it's in a very special way that we look to Our Lady
as not only the image of what it means
to be a disciple of our Lord,
model of faith,
but as our true mother in the order of the Spirit.
Our Lord gave Our Lady to us
at that supreme moment
when he suffered
and she stood at the foot of the cross.
Woman, behold your son.
And Our Lady's faith is witnessed throughout her lives.
And when we pray the Seven Sorrows,
we say at the very beginning of the First Sorrow,
Mary receives the prophecy of Simeon in faith.
The First Sorrow is Our Lady's bringing Jesus into the temple
and presenting him there.
And her hearing the words pronounced by Simeon
about the child,
he will be a sign of contradiction
and for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel.
And the prophecy as it affected herself,
and a sort of sorrow will pierce your own soul
so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare.
Our Lady received these words in faith
and she lived them in faith.
And that faith took her to the foot of the cross.
She's like another Abraham.
We're told by John Paul II
in Redemptoris Mater in his great encyclical.
Our Lady, and this is a very patristic idea.
The fathers of the church refer to this as well.
Our Lady is like Abraham.
Abraham was promised that he would have a son
and that his son would come through Sarah
and that this descendant would have a progeny without number.
And when they were made that promise,
if you read the book of Genesis,
Sarah laughed when the angel told Abraham that
because she thought it was ridiculous.
And the angel said,
why did your wife laugh?
She said, I didn't laugh.
And he said, oh yes you did.
St. Paul in the letter to the Hebrews
tells us that Abraham was as good as dead
and that God made this promise.
And then when God fulfilled the promise
and gave them Isaac,
as soon as they had Isaac,
God tells Abraham to sacrifice him,
to take him out, his only son,
the son through whom the promise would be fulfilled,
and sacrifice him.
And the letter to the Hebrews tells us that
Abraham was willing to do this
because he believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead.
Abraham did it because he believed in the power of God.
So at the foot of the cross,
Our Lady is like Abraham
because God promised her that she would have a son
and that his son would be a king
and his kingdom would be without him.
And she was willing to surrender her maternal rights
because it was the will of God.
But she believed in the goodness of God
and the power of God.
And she believed in the words of her son.
And so she was filled with faith in the resurrection,
filled with hope in the promises of God.
And she was willing to accept that cross,
that supreme cross.
She is the queen of martyrs,
not because she died a bloody death,
but her suffering is worse than the suffering of all the martyrs
because she sacrificed the greatest thing
that anybody could possibly sacrifice,
which was the Son of God.
And so we, in our own sufferings,
want to turn to our Blessed Mother
and ask her for the strength to live our faith
and to unite ourselves with the suffering of her Son.
We come before the altar of God to do precisely this.
And we do it with our Blessed Mother.
We should always ask Our Lady to help us
when we come to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
to unite ourselves in faith with the suffering of Jesus
so that we might offer a sacrifice
that is pleasing to the Lord.
Because in the end,
that's what our Lord is asking us to do.
That's really what he wanted Peter, James, and John to do.
Not just to be there in his darkest hour,
but he wanted them to offer a sacrifice
in union with his own,
that was pleasing to his Heavenly Father.
To give to the Father everything that they had
through the sacrifice of Jesus.
That's what we do in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
That's what Our Lady did at the foot of the cross.
She is truly co-redemptrix.
God chose her in a very unique way
to share in his suffering
and to offer a sacrifice which is redemptive.
Our Lady does that in a unique way.
And that's the perennial teaching of the Church,
whether you like the Word or not,
or like the teaching or not,
it is in fact what the Church has always taught,
that Our Lady offers a unique sacrifice
in union with the sacrifice of her Son.
That's what makes us Catholics,
that we believe that what we do counts.
When we offer a sacrifice in union with the Lord,
it counts, it makes a difference.
Our Lady's made a preeminent difference.
All of us have the priesthood of Jesus Christ.
I have it in a very special way
as an ordained minister
who is capable of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
and bringing about the forgiveness of sins,
the Sacrament of Confession.
But everyone who is baptized
is called to offer a sacrifice
in union with the Lord.
When we are baptized,
we are called to come to the altar of God,
receive Jesus in Holy Communion,
and unite everything that we have to him
and through him,
offer a sacrifice,
offer even his body, blood, soul, and divinity
to the Father.
And that is pleasing to God.
And so Our Lady should lead us
in the spirit of faith
to make an offering of sacrifice.
May the seven founders
of the Servite Order,
the servants of Mary,
intercede for us at this moment.
May we
may we
assimilate
the faith of Our Lady
by meditating upon her seven sorrows
and learning to have that
that faith which is unshakable
that leads us
from the mountain of transfiguration
in the spirit of faith and hope
to the mountain of Calvary
where our Lord offers his sacrifice
and where on the third day
he rises from the dead.
Amen.