Pope Leo the Great on
the Transfiguration
Sunday, March 16, 2025
On the Saturday before the second Sunday of Lent in 445,
Pope Leo, whose pontificate spanned more than twenty years, preached a powerful
sermon on the Transfiguration. It is one of the nearly one hundred sermons that
have been preserved from the first bishop of Rome to have been called Leo
(twelve others would follow). The sermons hold the distinction of being the
first papal homilies that have come down to us that were preached to the people
during liturgical celebrations.
This was the same Leo who would earn the title “the Great”
because of his many notable accomplishments. One such was his decisive
intervention at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon of 451,
which cemented the Christological doctrine of the three previous councils. This
came by way of a letter (known as the Tome of Leo) that was read to the
hundreds of assembled bishops, who, upon the completion of its reading,
acclaimed in unison: “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo.”
Another memorable episode took place the very next year when
Leo was instrumental in preventing the sacking of Rome by Attila the Hun. When
the latter entered Italy in 452, he began to sack and burn cities while winding
his way to Rome. The frightened Roman population begged Leo to go out and try
to persuade the fierce Hun to spare the Eternal City. Leo courageously accepted
the challenge, met with Attila, and convinced him to withdraw his forces.
Leo also successfully fought heresies and carried out diplomatic
missions, but he was foremost a pastor to his flock. And it’s in that capacity
that he preached his sermon on the Transfiguration, which he based on Matthew
17:1-13.
Leo sets the context by referring back to the previous
chapter in Matthew, specifically to Peter’s famous confession of Jesus as the
Christ, the Messiah. This Christ, Leo explains, was indeed the only begotten
Son of God, but also the Son of Man: “For the one without the other was of no
avail to salvation.”
Here Leo echoes the words of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who
died shortly before Leo was born. “The Theologian” had referred to Jesus’
“thick corporeality” while famously proclaiming that “that [part of man’s
nature] which is not assumed, is not healed.”
Leo argues that “it was equally dangerous to have believed
the Lord Jesus Christ to be either only God without manhood, or only man
without Godhead.” Thus, with one fell swoop, he lays waste the main heresies
that had troubled the Church during the prolonged period of Christological
controversies.
The Transfiguration by Lorenzo Lotto, 1510-1512 [Museo Vivico Villa Colloredo Mels,
Recanati, Italy]
Although Peter’s confession had rightly exalted Christ’s
higher nature, Leo observes, the apostle needed to be instructed on “the
mystery of Christ’s lower substance.” Peter’s imperfect understanding of this
mystery is evidenced by his rebuke of Jesus when the latter speaks of his
approaching Passion. This reproof makes clear, Leo declares, that although
Peter and the other apostles “had recognized the mystery of God in Him, yet the
power of His body, wherein His Deity was contained, they did not know.”
Leo maintains that the “kingly brilliance” Jesus manifested
in the Transfiguration was something as “specially belonging to the nature of
His assumed Manhood.” It is in his humanity, he contends, that the Lord
“displays his glory. . .and invests that bodily shape which He shared with
others with such splendor.”
The Transfiguration was intended “to remove the offense of
the cross from the disciple’s heart, and to prevent their faith being disturbed
by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence
of His hidden dignity.” It is by means of Christ’s punishment on the
Cross, Leo states, that God “opens the way to heaven” and prepares for us “the
steps of ascent to the Kingdom.”
Jesus’ transfigured body reveals the nature of that Kingdom
and the culmination of salvation history. In fact, Leo is of the view that
Jesus’ promise that certain of his disciples standing by Him would not taste
death until they saw the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom was fulfilled at that
very moment. (This promise is recorded at the end of Matthew 16, immediately
preceding the account of the Transfiguration)
Mortal flesh, Leo further explains, cannot in its current
condition gaze upon “the unspeakable and unapproachable vision of the Godhead
Itself.” That is reserved for eternal life, when our bodies also will be
transformed. For the disciples standing that day on Mt. Nebo, a dome-shaped
mountain a few miles east of Nazareth, the Transfiguration was a privileged
foretaste of that greater reality that awaits all God’s people.
But we cannot hurry the process, Leo cautions; the Cross
must come before the crown. As he declares, “the joyousness of reigning cannot
precede the times of suffering.” That is why Jesus disregards Peter’s
suggestion to build three tabernacles on the site. Leo did not believe that the
request was wicked in itself; it was simply “contrary to the Divine order.”
As the Lord had done with Peter, James, and John, Leo takes
his hearers up the mountain, one from whose summit they can survey the wide
panorama of salvation history. Appropriately, therefore, the disciples are
joined by Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets,
respectively. “The pages of both covenants corroborate each other,” Leo
affirms, adding that in Jesus is “fulfilled both the promise of prophetic
figures and the purpose of the legal ordinances.”
Leo emphasizes that the Transfiguration took place not only
for the sake of those present but also for us. As he declares, “in these three
Apostles the whole Church has learnt all their eyes saw and their ears heard.”
And what we learn is nothing less than the glorious truth of the Godhead’s
“common plan for the restoration of mankind.” This revelation is ratified by
the Father’s own voice from heaven: “This is my beloved Son. . .listen to Him.”
About the Author: Luis E. Lugo
Luis E. Lugo is a
retired college professor and foundation executive who writes from Rockford,
Michigan.
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/
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