Second Sunday of Lent

On our cover this Sunday is The Transfiguration, the final masterpiece of Raphael. Created for a cathedral in France but kept in Rome after Raphael’s untimely death at just 37.  This monumental work was placed beside his coffin during his funeral​, a testimony to how deeply it was loved. The painting captures today​'s Gospel: Christ revealed in glory on Mount Tabor before Peter, James, and John. Suspended in radiant light, Jesus appears between Moses and Elijah, ​representing the Law and the Prophets, as the Father’s voice declares Him the Beloved Son. Raphael’s luminous whites and vibrant blues draw our eyes upward, inviting us into contemplation of Christ’s divine majesty.

Yet what makes this painting especially powerful is that Raphael combines two Gospel scenes in one dramatic composition. In the lower half, the remaining apostles struggle to heal a possessed boy​, an episode that follows immediately after the Transfiguration in the Gospel of Matthew 17. The sharp contrast between the serene brilliance above and the confusion and shadow below reveals a profound spiritual truth: the glory of Christ does not remove us from human suffering but meets us within it. The boy’s desperate father gestures upward, as if pointing to the only true source of healing. The diagonal line of Christ’s body visually connects heaven and earth, showing that divine light descends precisely into our darkness.

​In the juxtaposition, or rather, in the pairing of Christ's overwhelming divinity and the very real sufferings of man, ​R​aphael teaches the radiant Lord of glory is the very One who walks with us in our need, drawing us upward even as He reaches down in mercy.