The Luminous Mystery of Suffering

On this Second Sunday of Lent, we are invited with Peter, James, and John into the mystery of Christ’s Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor.  In being bathed in the anticipatory light of the Lord’s future Resurrection, they are in fact being prepared to pass through the coming trauma of the Lord’s suffering and death on Mt. Calvary.  They learn that mortal flesh is made for eternal glory.

Thanks to the prayer and initiative of Pope St. John Paul II, the Church also commemorates the Transfiguration as the Fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary.  In his Apostolic Letter on the Most Holy Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the Holy Father identified what he called five “Mysteries of Light”:  (1) The Baptism of the Lord; (2) The Wedding of Cana; (3) The Proclamation of the Kingdom, with the Call to Conversion; (4) The Transfiguration; and (5) The Institution of the Eucharist.

In these Luminous Mysteries focused on the public ministry of the Person of Christ, we can also glimpse in outline the seven Sacraments of the Church:  The First Luminous Mystery obviously refers to Baptism, even as the Second points to Matrimony.  The Third points both to the missionary proclamation of Confirmation as well as the conversion sacramentalized in Confession.  The Fifth Mystery clearly implies both Holy Communion and Holy Orders, each instituted together at the Last Supper.  But what of the Transfiguration’s mysterious connection to the Anointing of the Sick?

Throughout my eleven years of Priestly ministry, I have administered the Anointing of the Sick to countless people in the greatest variety of circumstances.  I never anticipated when and how this Sacrament would one day be administered to me.  When the deterioration of my jaw had finally become debilitating and the prospect of surgery inevitable, one Sunday when I was at the St. Pius X Parish rectory at the end of a long day in the vineyard of the Lord’s Day Masses, I asked my good friend and former Pastor Fr. Bill Schooler for this Sacrament. 

Accompanied by his Associate Fr. Terry Coonan, we went upstairs to the rectory chapel.  I sat in the same chair in which for the first six years of my Priesthood each day I had gathered with Fr. Bill to pray Lauds as we welcomed simultaneously the light of a new day and the light of Christ.  In the darkness of that Sunday evening and through my interior darkness at the path of extended and unknown suffering that lay ahead, both Priests laid their hands on my head as I received Holy Anointing through oil and tears.  I felt the transfiguration of all of my prayer in that place and in my life up to that point.  I sensed that everything lived up to that moment was a preparation for what was to come.

Several months later and just a day before leaving for surgery, I stopped by the rectory of St. Joseph Parish to make my Confession to Fr. Terry Fisher and receive the Anointing of the Sick again.  The actions were so simple, and I had walked the paths of these very sacraments with so many other people as far as their healing or their very entrance into eternal life.  But what I remember most from my second Holy Anointing was the pungent smell of the olive oil.  My nose confirmed for hours afterward that I had received a gift, blessed and breathed over by Bishop Rhoades at the Chrism Mass.  I smelled like Christ had claimed me in yet a new way for a new purpose.

            I remember phoning Bishop Rhoades both before and after my surgery, receiving his fatherly assurance and expression of deep communion in prayer.  And during one of my post-operative strolls in St. Petersburg’s parks, I was suddenly and simply and utterly overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of my life---not that I was given this or spared that but for the gift of everything, even the suffering.  I recall thinking to the Lord with boundless thanks that it was all worth it, that if I had been given the choice I would have chosen it all from Him exactly as it was given to me.  The moment was transfiguringly luminous.

            John Paul the Great wrote his Apostolic Letter on the Most Holy Rosary in 2002, when his body was well advanced in the mystery of suffering and after he had received the Anointing of the Sick more than once.  To be drawn by Peter’s successor into the glory of Tabor is a great gift offered to all who would believe and follow the Lord’s Lenten invitation to accompany Him up the mountain---be it Tabor or Calvary or both.  We intuitively know that prolonged pain ever threatens to erode our sense of meaning and the goodness of life.  But in giving us innumerable mysterious points of light along the way, especially in His sacramental friendship, the Lord Jesus grants that not only our joys but also the sorrows of our flesh’s frailty can---by passing through His Passion and Death---share in that Resurrection which fully and finally clothes us in glory.