Floored by Glory
“When they became fully awake, they saw his glory. ”
The Christian art of Terrance McKillip is on display at the gallery of his proprietorship in Blanchard, WI, Art St Ann (whose website unfortunately seems to have expired). His attraction to the clock face as a canvas is especially poignant viz-a-viz the Transfiguration, as time collapses on the Holy Mountain such that Moses and Elijah are there with Jesus and his disciples; likewise, the crown of his glory in the tearing of his flesh, as the Transfiguration points both backwards to the revelation of his Epiphany — the glory of his Incarnation — and forward to the revelation of his Cross. McKillip’s depiction is fragmented and abstract, but motivated by a fundamentally correct intuition. In being a luminous moment of both wonder and terror, revelation and ignorance, anticipation and fulfillment, the Transfiguration presents us with an axial lens on the mystery of redemption that shines a new light on the ministry and teaching of Jesus, and indeed, on the whole of the Scriptures.
They were afraid as they entered the cloud.
The Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke (Luke 9:34)
The Last Sunday of Epiphany
Texts for this Week
Prayer
O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Messiaen’s Transfiguration
Olivier Messiaen’s La Transfigration de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ (ca 1969) is an utterly epic piece of music. Over two hundred musicians are required to play through its fourteen movements; the full score takes an hour and a half to perform (this video being only its first two movements with a nice piece of artwork). It is a masterpiece. It is a work of genius. At the same time, it is rather unpleasant to listen to. Its complex and dissonant lines, with fugal interpolations of birdsong, odd percussive segments seem more like an experimental scifi soundtrack than typical classical music. But that is precisely the effect of the Transfiguration: uncomfortable, disruptive, and perspective reshaping; as much cloud as light, requiring an interval of long silence for its mystery digested before it can be proclaimed.
