Shall we build three tents: Tu Es Petras
It’s always a surprise to me when The Feast of the Transfiguration rolls around on August sixth. It’s not so on the second Sunday in Lent when we once again celebrate the transfigured Jesus on Mount Tabor. On that Sunday, it feels like the goalpost we each aim for: our own divinity. By the second week of Lent, I’m so focused on the plethora of my weaknesses and failures that by the second Sunday, I need a crystal-clear reminder of what Lent, and my life, are all about.
By August, though, I’m lulled by the heat, its lassitude and slowness of mind that induce a bit of torpor.
Then—WHAM: the Transfiguration!
Listening to Father Eric Ritter’s last Tuesday morning homily, I considered Peter’s “Lord, shall we build three tents?” differently. Instead of focusing on Matthew’s “Peter was so terrified he didn’t know what he was saying,” I thought, with Peter, ” Let’s stay.” And breathe in the divinity clearly revealed before our very eyes. True because rhe homilist brought his listeners up to Mount Tabor with his memory of the ascent from the Jezreel plains up, up and up over 1800 feet to the Church of the Transfiguration. Where the priest vividly remembers entering the church. And passing between two towers: one dedicated to Moses and the other to Elijah.
Listening, I considered what Peter had been trying to express. Enveloped in the essence of divinity, seeing in ‘person’, Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. The vision had to have felt like heaven, mustn’t it?
We’ve had experiences like that. Moments so permated with Him that we want it to last forever. But “No!” Father Eric exhorts, “we must go back down the mountain where the air is smoky with sin, where each of us and all of humanity are doing our level best to crucify Our Lord, over and over again.
Let’s break away from the intense heat of the weather, the politics and the yawning chasm which divides us and spend a few minutes reflecting on this oh so familiar man—Saint Simon Peter.
It is Good for Us to Be Here
To allow ourselves to think like this passionate guy, this fisherman who frequently just acted—and then thought.
Tu Es Petras
The work was comissioned for the first Papal visit to Westminster Abbey in over 1000 years. In September 2010, Pope Benedict XVl made a four-day visit to the United Kingdom. On the third day, he celebrated Mass in Westminster Abbey. Composer Sir James McMillan’s Tu Es Petras, chorale work Thou art Peter and on this rock will I build my church is thrilling when I listen on my laptop.
But live?
In that vast, magnificent church that was once a Benedictine Abbey?
We can almost sense a Petrine whisper, “Shall we build three tents??
But no, we’ve work to do, each one of us, according to the mission we’ve been created for.
“One of the greatest challenges facing us today is how to speak convincingly of the wisdom and liberating power of God’s word to a world which all too often sees the Gospel as a constriction of human freedom, instead of the truth which liberates our minds and enlightens our efforts to live wisely and well.”
Pope Benedict’s Westminster Cathedral Homily
Beautiful! Thank you.