Two points in this post:
- One often says that, in contrast to the Eastern Churches (Catholic and Orthodox), the Latin Church lost sight of the reality of the transfiguration of the body. This is a gross oversimplification. The Doctors of the Church did not!
- For some of the saints, the tangible links between them on earth were intense.
It has often been summarily remarked that the Latin Church lost sight of what the Eastern Fathers called the transfiguration of the body, that we had to wait to see photos of Thérèse and Charles de Foucauld before we realized, Oh my God! You can make a face be changed into an icon and a gift for others!
For example, this is, on the whole, what Father Marie-Joseph Le Guillou presents in his book Some Beings Have Been Transfigured – Why Not Us?. Most Latin Catholics think of prayer as, not only primarily interior, but without any visible aspect on our faces, our eyes, our body language, the line of our faces, the brightness and intensity of our eyes. As Father Le Guillou put it, for the case of the controversy as it arose in the 17th and 18th centuries in France: “Bossuet l’a tout saccagé! Bossuet sacked the whole thing!”
Many Latin Catholics seem to have accepted the Reformation and Enlightenment principles that religion is fundamentally private and interior and only arises outside of us in specific actions. (It’s false. Transfiguration is real.)
However, the Doctors of the Church did not accept this compartmentalization of sanctity. In fact, the two Doctors of the era following the Counter-Reformation and prior to the Enlightenment are perhaps the clearest among all Latin Doctors regarding the universal or should-be-universal nature of the transfiguration of the human body by the Holy Spirit.
Start with Francis de Sales, Doctor of Charity. Decades after his death, the Doctor of Prayer, Alphonsus Liguori, wrote,
Saints usually had smiles on their faces, radiating a kindliness that was expressed in their words and actions. This led Saint Vincent de Paul to say of Saint Francis de Sales that he had never known a kinder man. He further said that Monsignor de Sales seemed to him a vivid image of the kindliness of Jesus Christ. (The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Ch VI, #3)
And later in Ch XII, #5:
And in this way the saint [Francis de Sales] acquired an inner peace so great that it showed even on the outside; because he almost always had a serene expression and a smile on his face.
And again something similar in Ch XIV, #1. Three times in one book!
These are intense passages.
First, Saint Alphonsus tells us that the Holy Spirit, in making us holy, “usually” affects our appearance. Alphonsus clearly and unmistakably tells us that the transfiguration of our bodies into a icon, in some way, must be real. The body is not an add-on to contemplation and union with God. It’s part of the deal.
Second, Alphonsus is actually referencing Saint Jane Frances de Chantal’s report for the canonization cause of her friend Francis de Sales. Yes, that’s four of that era’s greatest saints in one paragraph: Francis de Sales to Vincent de Paul to Jane Frances de Chantal to Alphonsus Liguori. Three of them knew each other. The fourth recognized that three of them knew each other and further recognized that this led them to be able to perceive, with the tender perception of the saints, visual clues in the lives of their friends as regards the action of the Spirit.
Did the Latin Church ever forget the central place of transfiguration in contemplation and in love? It depends what one means by the “Latin Church”. Here we have plain evidence that the Doctors of the Latin Church did not forget about the transfiguration of the body. In fact, the saints are self-referential in explaining the theme of the transfiguration of the body! Alphonsus cites Jane Frances, who reports what Vincent de Paul said about Francis de Sales! It’s like an anthology of the era’s great saints in the French- and Italian-speaking world!
The saints never forgot about the transfiguration of the body. If the rest of us did, it’s only because we did not listen to a tradition that is and has always been constant.
Related posts:
Contemplative in the Mud 