The sight of the Lord Jesus in all His glory at the Transfiguration, which the Church celebrates in early August, is a mystery that really is beyond our comprehension. What was heard by Peter, John and James, on the other hand, is unmistakable. “This is my chosen Son; listen to Him,” said the voice of our heavenly Father. And the Scripture we heard just a few days earlier at Sunday Mass is also clear: “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
Each of us would do well to ask ourselves: Do I do that? Do I listen to the Lord? Do we – whether we are lowly or in positions of power and authority – welcome the Word of God into our hearts and incorporate it into our lives? Do we pay attention to what the living manifestation of Christ in the world today – the Church – is proclaiming and follow it? Do we, personally or as a people or nation, appreciate that we are all brothers and sisters in one human family? Do we care for and love one another as Jesus loves us? Do we do good and avoid evil, treating others with justice while working to safeguard human dignity and promote the common good?
Or do we harden our hearts against the love, goodness, justice and peace which Jesus calls us to? Do we resent or marginalize others or insult their inherent human dignity? Are we indifferent to the suffering of others or, worse, do we contribute to it?
The month of August offers us two examples of people who not only placed listening to Jesus at the center of their ministries, but made His Word their mission in seeking to end social injustice and brutality: Saint Óscar Romero, who was born on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in August 1963.
“Let us listen to Him,” urged Saint Óscar. Our Savior speaks precisely from the misery of people, this holy archbishop affirmed, and He has much to say to those who look to Him with confidence during tragic and uncertain moments.
“The transfigured Christ presents to us a permanent challenge, the challenge of transfiguring our people,” Saint Óscar said to the Christian faithful on this feast day in 1979. Our great contribution as the Church, he added, is to promote the human person. “If human dignity is being assaulted in our present situation, it is because the state and those who worship idols have forgotten that what is most important is not the idols, but human beings. The Church seeks to restore the dignity of all people.”
That challenge today includes transfiguring society and public leaders to respect the human dignity of migrants and refugees, and what that son of El Salvador said 45 years ago about human rights abuses in his country applies equally to ours: “To the public authorities, who have the sacred duty of governing for the good of all, Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, addresses a call for a sense of truth, justice, and of sincere service to the people.” In particular, public officials should “stop the terrorization” of people and “put an end to the tragic situation of confrontation.” Instead, Saint Óscar said, government ought to use its power to guarantee a state in which justice, peace and the exercise of every person’s fundamental rights are defended.
I have likewise appealed to the consciences of government leaders and agents many times in these past few months. Now I would like to say a few words about transfiguring ourselves to be more like Jesus Christ.
As migrants and refugees are marginalized and mistreated, we remember they are not alone in their trials. After centuries of enslavement, generations of African Americans in this country endured the inhumanity of racial segregation and discrimination, the denial of basic human rights, and violence by the hardened hearts of government officials and the culture. During the struggle for civil rights, Dr. King and other advocates for justice were also treated to jailings, fire hoses, vicious dogs, and beatings with clubs by police.
It would be understandable according to the way of the world if those who have suffered so were to respond in kind with violence, but Saint Óscar and Dr. King were of one mind in urging instead the way of Jesus Christ, who not only said “love your neighbor,” but “love your enemies” and “pray for your persecutors.” As the immigrant community today faces innumerable unjust hardships, Jesus’ message of love as the way to justice is the way we must also follow.
“Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody,” Dr. King understood. Hate “is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. [It] is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence.”
If we succumb to “an eye for an eye” retaliation in response to the injustices imposed on migrants and refugees, it will only end badly. Instead, “somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love” even though you are being mistreated, as Dr. King said, meaning the kind of love that holds no resentments and seeks the good of the other, even the oppressor. You see, “love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals,” he explained, and “through the power of this love, somewhere men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom.”
Yes, we must “listen to Him” because Jesus’ way is the only way. Dr. King was right in saying that “it is love that will save our world and our civilization.” It may not be easy, and it may take time, but it is the only way we can make a reality the dream that he spoke of in his 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial – a dream we should all work for – of transforming “the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood…If America is to be a great nation, this must become true.”
(Bishop Evelio Menjivar is an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.)
