A Transfiguration of Glory and a Transfiguration of Horror

Today, August 6, is the Feast of the Transfiguration, when Peter, James, and John saw Jesus as he truly was, glorious with uncreated Light, conversing with Moses and Elijah. Flabbergasted, they said dumb things about staying there always, but were told they all had to go back down the mountain, back to "real life" ---- though what was at the top of Tabor was more real than the "real life" down below.

Also today, August 6, is the Commemoration Day of the destruction of Hiroshima, when the first of two cities, chosen because they had no military significance (therefore had no previous bomb damage to complicate the before-and-after photos), was utterly destroyed by a single bomb, its people transformed in an instant from living embodied ones to etched shadows on the pavements, and others left to slowly die over weeks and months from radiation-related illnesses unknown before. Those two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were not chosen because they were the heart of Japanese Catholicism; _that_ was accidental.

So, we celebrate this feast of our Lord, and remember our brothers and sisters who were doing the same in the Hiroshima Cathedral when they themselves were transformed in a single instant, to see the Lord for eternity as he truly is.

May the perpetual Light, which we celebrate especially on this day, shine upon them all.
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