Catholic News Editorial of March 19, 2000

"We heard this ourselves, spoken from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain". 2 Peter 1: 18

The Second Sunday of Lent comes this year after a truly traumatic week here in Trinidad and Tobago. All our citizens, especially the members of our Church, have been numbed by the sudden and unexpected death of our beloved Archbishop Pantin.

In times of grief, we human beings find strength and courage by sharing our feelings with one another.

It was only to be expected then that we at Catholic News, as in all Church institutions, should have received personal testimonies almost without interruption - through visits, telephone calls and e-mail. For ourselves, it was not a matter of listening but rather of hearing from others, echoes of our own sentiments.

Our sense of loss has been accompanied by deep gratitude for the blessing of having known this wonderful person. This has been our way of living the Transfiguration - the mysterious event which by tradition our Church invites us to celebrate on this Sunday.

The words quoted above, were written by St Peter many years after the apostles "were with Jesus on the holy mountain". At that moment they knew Him as Son of God, not from the evidence of others but from personal experience. They had heard a voice "from heaven", had been in the presence of God.

Like all the stories of Jesus, the Transfigurations tell us something about ourselves. Though Jesus is the "only Son of God" as we profess in the Creed, he has shared his divine sonship with us.

This truth of our faith is expressed in the prayer of the Mass that we will "come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity".

God Gives the Grace

Like the apostles, we need to know it not merely with our minds but in our hearts, and for this to happen God gives us the grace of a "mountain top experience".

This can take different forms - a moment of prayer, standing in awe before a beautiful work of art, watching a sunset, a full moon, the sea, a poui tree in full bloom.

The most precious of these experiences occur however when we meet people so deeply spiritual that in their presence we know we are "on a holy mountain".

According to the evidence of the past week, this was the effect which meeting Archbishop Pantin had on people of every creed, race, social class and educational background.

In the gospel story, the glorious moment came to an end. The apostles "looked around them and saw no one but only Jesus". They had to return to reality - "come down from the mountain". This is the stage we must now go through as a Church and as individuals.

We must move forward, face the realities of everyday life harsh as they are, and gradually take up once again, our responsibilities to families, friends, fellow workers, our country and ourselves.

We will need then to keep alive the values Archbishop Pantin taught by word and example - reverence for every person, good humour in difficult circumstances, trust that "it is all God's work".