Feast
of the Transfiguration
and the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing
By
Cardinal Justin Rigali
The moment
There is a valid school of spirituality that emphasizes “living
in the moment.” This concept can be very helpful when it is viewed
in the light of speaking, thinking and acting as Jesus would want us
to do at each moment and not merely waiting for dramatic opportunities.
It is also helpful in avoiding “wishing our time away” by
always waiting and wishing for a future moment that may indeed never
come, while we waste the present opportunities given to us. However,
because of our human weakness and tendency to be impetuous, the moment
can also present a danger. Our acting on the moment, without reflection
but with the passions that are part of our fallen nature, can lead us
into difficulty and even sin. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Many of us may have experienced responding in anger to a person or situation.
For the moment, it felt good to get that anger out! However, reflecting
upon the hurt we may have caused another or the scandal we may have
caused by our outburst, we wind up not feeling quite so good! There
is even a Latin maxim, which can be translated as: “Delay is the
remedy for anger.” In other words, let the moment pass, and your
anger may have subsided and you will not wind up reacting as you would
have at the moment.
We may have heard of what is called “compulsive buying”
or “compulsive shopping.” For the moment, we want something
or think that we need it and so we buy it. Upon reflection, it wasn’t
so necessary as we thought. In this week’s topic, we are going
to speak about some “moments” and reflect upon them: those
involving Jesus’ Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, which we celebrate
liturgically on August 6, and those surrounding the bombing of Hiroshima,
Japan, which also took place on August 6, in 1945.
The Transfiguration involves two “moments”
It is important to remember that Jesus is a divine Person. He possesses
two natures, that of God, which He possesses from all eternity and that
of man, which He assumed when the Word was made flesh in the womb of
the Virgin Mary. However, He remains one divine Person. This is something
we can never completely understand in this life and it is one of the
beautiful mysteries which will be revealed to those who will enjoy the
glory of Heaven. As a divine Person, Jesus was able to see and know
at every moment all that His mission would demand of Him. In seeing
before Him the Passion and Death He would have to undergo, He knew that
at that “moment” His disciples would find it difficult to
believe in Him. Therefore, in His love for them, He anticipated that
moment with another one: that of His Transfiguration. When his disciples
would be confronted with His Passion and Death, He wanted them to recall
this other moment, when they beheld the majesty of His glorified body
as it would be after His Resurrection. He wanted them to know that His
Passion would not be an end in itself but the way to His glory. Saint
Thomas Aquinas gives us a beautiful and practical insight into this
truth. He writes: “For a person to go straight along the road,
he must have some knowledge of the end. This is particularly necessary
if the road is hard and rough, the going heavy, and the end delightful”
(Summa Theologiae, III, q. 45, a. 1).
It is significant to note that the Apostles who were privileged to share
in the glorious moment of the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John,
were the very same Apostles who were near our Lord during His agony
in the Garden of Gethsemane. In our desire to advance in the spiritual
life by drawing ever closer to Jesus, we should keep these lessons in
mind. When we are granted those moments in which we seem to glimpse
the glory of Jesus through the consolations of prayer, insights into
the word of God or the blessings we receive through people, places and
things, we should not forget that these must strengthen us to share
also in the Cross of Jesus. This is the great message of the Gospel
and the only road to eternal glory, which will be a “moment”
which has no end!
The terrible moment of Hiroshima’s bombing
We have all heard the expression: “Hindsight is 20/20.”
In other words, in reflecting back on a past event, it is comparatively
easy to analyze it, make judgments and assign blame. The decision of
the President of the United States to use the then recently developed
atomic bomb against a primarily civilian target has been analyzed many
times over and does not admit of a simplistic conclusion. The President
had to decide at that moment and he alone ultimately bore that frightening
responsibility. Since the Church has reflected on this moment in history,
August 6, 1945, this is a good opportunity to share some of those reflections.
In reflecting on the modern development of scientific weapons and their
horrific possibilities, the Second Vatican Council stated: “All
these factors force us to undertake a completely fresh appraisal of
war. People of the present generation should realize that they will
have to render an account of their warlike behavior; the destiny of
generations to come depends largely on the decisions they make today.”
The Council goes on to declare: “Every act of war directed to
the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their
inhabitants is a crime against God and humanity, which merits firm and
unequivocal condemnation” (Gaudium et Spes, 80).
Pope Pius XII (1939 -1958) was confronted with the responsibility of
guiding the Church in the post World War II era, with all the frightening
new challenges that war, science and technology had brought with it.
As part of his responsibility to apply the perennial teachings of the
Church in the light of modern realities, he confronted the question
of nuclear war. In an Address, which the Second Vatican Council referenced
in the statement quoted above, Pius XII said of the use of nuclear bombs
in wartime: “Even then, however, one must strive to avoid it by
all possible means through international understanding or to impose
limits on its use that are so clear and rigorous that its effects remain
restricted to the strict demands of defense. When, moreover, putting
this method to use involves such an extension of the evil that it entirely
escapes from the control of man, its use must be rejected as immoral.
Here there would be no longer a question of “defense” against
injustice or a necessary “safeguarding” of legitimate possessions,
but the pure and simple annihilation of all human life within the radius
of action. This is not permitted for any reason whatsoever” (Address
to the 8th Congress of the World Medical Association, 30 September 1954).
Pope John Paul II echoed both the teaching of Pope Pius XII and the
Second Vatican Council when he stated during his visit to Hiroshima
in 1981: “To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.
To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war. To remember Hiroshima
is to commit oneself to peace. To remember what the people of this city
suffered is to renew our faith in man, in his capacity to do what is
good, in his freedom to choose what is right, in his determination to
turn disaster into a new beginning” (Address at Peace Memorial
Park, Hiroshima, Japan; 25 February 1981).
Total war
As we reflect on the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is important
to point out that the Church’s Magi-sterium, in the post World
War II era, has reflected on and condemned the concept of “total
warfare,” which states that any means necessary to achieve victory
may be used. It is interesting to note that, until World War II , most
countries universally followed some basic rules which protected the
wholesale destruction of civilian populations. The increase in scientific
technology, which made the production of ever-more destructive weapons
possible and the desperation of conflicts such as World War II, made
it necessary to reflect anew upon the realities of modern warfare. This
is why the Popes, the Second Vatican Council, the American Bishops and
many theologians and moralists have used the perennial teachings of
Christ and His Church and applied them in a concrete way to condemn
the wholesale destruction of innocent populations and towns. It was
not their intent to condemn all the persons involved in the decisions,
which took place in new and frightening circumstances, but to use a
reflection on those horrible realities and their consequences to arouse
our consciences and spur our activity so that we will be reminded that
we can never justify the actions of “total warfare.”
Both the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor and the events of Hiroshima
take us from a particular moment to a future reality. In our lives as
Christians, let us live the moment in the good sense of the word, always
speaking and acting as a Christian should. Let us also ask God for the
grace never to act impetuously upon the moment, without mature reflection.
In this way, the individual moments of this life will be used as the
means of gaining an eternal reward in Heaven.
August 2, 2007