Opening address by the Prior of Bose

3. The Cloud of the Spirit and the Voice of the Father.

While Peter is talking, there comes “a cloud that overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud saying: ‘This is my beloved Son, hear him!” (Mk 9.7). In the background of the account there is always the account of the theophany accorded to Moses on Mount Sinai: on the high mount there was a cloud which overshadowed it (cf. Ex 19.16; 20.21; 24.15; etc), a cloud which is a symbol of the Presence of God, a sign that God has descended, has reached out to humans, yet always remaining concealed, Holy, separated from the world. This cloud, which on the mountain indicated the House of God (cf. the verb shakan, whence Shekinah), came to the tabernacle constructed by Moses in the desert (cf. Ex 40.34-35) and at the time of the dedication of the Temple, filled the Holy of Holies (cf. 1Kings 8.10-12). This cloud therefore is the Presence of God, which is seen by rabbinic tradition as Presence through the Holy Spirit, is the self-same glory of God. The Entry hymn in Latin Mass justly says: “The Holy Spirit appeared in a luminous cloud and the voice of the Father resounded”…
In the event of the Transfiguration, the Shekinah comes to testify that God is present and overshadows the persons present at the event. We are faced with an oxymoron: it is “a luminous cloud” specifies Matthew, and yet it overshadows (cf. Mt 17.5); Matthew’s specification will be dear to Christian tradition as definition of consciousness and vision of God… This therefore is the answer to the words of Peter: not three tabernacles made by men, but one cloud, the Shekinah of God. This is the ultimate and definitive truth: no more a tabernacle, no more a Temple, no more a Holy of Holies, but rather the Shekinah, the House-Presence of God in Jesus Christ, who is House, temple and Presence! According to the fourth Gospel, Jesus will tell the Samaritan woman: “Woman, the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit (i.e. in the Holy Spirit) and in truth (which is Jesus Christ)” (Jn 4.23)…
From the cloud of the Presence of God here comes the voice of the Father, the word of God himself. Jesus had heard this word of the Father when he was baptised by John the Baptist; then the heavens opened and a voice proclaimed to Jesus alone: “Thou art my Son, the beloved one (“the elect one” according to Lk 3.22) in whom I am well pleased” (Mk 1.11; Mt 3.17). In fact the voice of the Father had repeated then the words said of the Servant of the Lord: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, in whom my soul delighteth”(Isa 42.1), attesting that the Son of God is the Servant of the Lord. Now this is announced to the disciples, among them Peter, who a little earlier had turned to Jesus calling him “Rabbi, Master” (Mk 9.5). He whom the disciples had followed and had become involved in his life, he whom they had heard and seen act like a Master, a Prophet, a Messiah, is revealed by the Father as “Beloved Son” and “Servant of the Lord”. Indeed, through the revelation of the Father, Jesus appears at the same time as the enthroned Messiah of Psalm 2 (“thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” Ps 2.7) and as the Servant whom God himself presents to Israel through the prophet Isaiah (cf. Isa 42.1-9).
It is here that the different messianic expectations of Israel meet: the expectation of a royal Messiah, of a prophetic Messiah, of an eschatological Messiah. It is for this reason that the invitation “Hear him!” resounds echoing the words of God in relation to the eschatological prophet (cf. Deut 18.15) and echoing also the Shema’: “Hear Israel…” (Deut 6.4). Henceforth hearing God himself is hearing Jesus, the Son, the living Word of God! Moses and Elijah, the Law and the prophets, cede their place to Jesus after having witnessed, because henceforth it is He who is the exegesis of the Father (exeghesato: Jn 1.18); it is He, Jesus, who can verily say who God is and preach him, rendering Him as good news to all men; the command “Hear him!” of God the Father means that Jesus is the Logos, the definitive Word…
But the vision disappears and Jesus is once again seen in his humble everyday human nature (cf. Mk 9.8 et par). Then, “while they were descending from the mount, Jesus charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were to rise from the dead” (Mk 9.9). the revelation was extraordinary but must remain under silence, so that the messianic secret may not be unveiled before the time of the resurrection. But the disciples, always prey to their astonishment, to their lack of faith, ask themselves what ‘rises from the dead’ might mean” (cf. Mk 9.10)…