Light in August

...The pastor women's movement, Jews, or blacks, not even if framed in a from the Metropolitan Community Church (a largely gay and discussion of the "larger" issues...

...Act-up wants to be treated the responsibilities of public television...

...We are unlikely ever to know the full story of pressures and Los Angeles AIDS Project has disavowed the representative counter-pressures that led to PB S's original scheduling of"Stop from their group who appeared...

...What does it say about the world we live in that, quite often, the best way we can find a word for something is to describe it as against something else that is, apparently, the pervasive alternative...

...The occurrence of the Transfiguration is seen here before Jesus' Crucifixion...

...They forget glory's meaning, never were able to grasp it in the moment it was revealed, and they flee at the scent of danger...

...The jux- and being astonished by the revelation of Hiroshima...

...536: Commonweal...

...On balance, I think the cardinal is right...

...It is horrible (like the reality all human beings are meant to prophets--and then grow sleepy during his the use of the code name Trinity for the share...

...These are the people who become the foundation of the church at Pentecost...

...At the Transfiguration, they did not see fully, or even adequately, what was in front of them...

...All speak of their seeing day America dropped the bomb on time it ought to fill us with dread...

...More was at stake has been picketed again by gay groups for airing the video than issues of free speech, treatment of sensitive material, and and the discussion in the form it did...

...That one, as good a sign as any that we are living prophets, and shines with "the uncreated they are able to go on, having forgotten in the last days so many fundamentalists light," the presence of the Holy Spirit, the for awhile what they saw, is a great encour- yearn for with a nearly pornographic pas- vision of God that can be seen by human agement...

...lesbian congregation) who participated in the KCET panel told JOHN A. COLEMAN other participants off screen, that he had been under severe John A. Coleman, S.J., is professor of religion and society pressure, including threats, against appearing on the show...

...The winning essay will receive a prize of $1,000 and will be published in COMMONWEAL...

...It is easier to think of ne early morning when I development of the bomb), but not neces- humanity as limited by our perceptions than was in a Texas town on sarily proof of the end of time as much as to think that what is genuinely human is August 6, the Feast of the it is a proof that horror is always with us...

...Having seen it, however dimly, they failed to connect it with Jesus' desire for their attentiveness during his suffering on Gethsemane, where even in their fear they THE GRAYMOOR PRIZE The Friars of the Atonement announce the second annual Graymoor Prize, to be awarded to the best essay on any aspect of ecumenical or interreligious affairs...

...the conditions that "political correctness" arbitrarily imposes...

...PBS would Sullivan was drowned out by demonstrators at the 1990 never have show a such a bigoted and untruthful film about the International AIDS conference in San Francisco...

...Others, lies and derisive treatment...

...sion...

...It is important mation of the divine/human reality we are reason to fear...

...We are politically "incorrect" on Cardinal Mahoney for one, who argued against showing the a number of issues, as Van Gordon Sauter said...

...measured not only by a divine standard, Transfiguration, ! watched That horror is revealed most clearly in the but that humanity is seen fully only when a spider approach a fly light of something so full of human hope it is seen as potentially divine...

...I was in Amarillo, where bombs taposition of the feast with the dropping of Christ's glory...

...The award- winning submission, which may take the form of a scholarly or critical essay or a personal narrative, should appeal to the interests of the general educated reader...

...The glory of the Resurrection could see a loved teacher, a baffling but sort...

...This way of forming words works in English as well: "Remembering" means to put something together again, the implication being that something was pulled apart, dismembered, in the first place...

...The at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley...

...beings to the extent that they are capable It may seem impossible that someone I don't yearn for or trust any signs of this of beating it...

...It was possible for the Apostles, having seen Jesus' Transfiguration, to sleep through his agony, and desert him at his death...

...It obviously authoritative rabbi, surrounded on the day of Hiroshima is probably only is not only Christ's glory, but our own...

...The horrible coincidence of light the bomb on Hiroshima is a clear, terrible also the disciples who accompany Jesus filling bodies on this day---in one case the irony...

...The point here is that, before looking forward to the Resurrection and Pentecost, we have to look at the most important fact about their most constant behavior: they forgot, and kept forgetting...

...we are not even up to Peter's bewilderment, which is at least an understandable response to something wonderful...

...We have heard and told this story so often that we have become comfortable with it (which is to say, we make a little idol of it...

...Original and unpublished essays of approximately 2500-4000 words should be submitted to the editors of COMMONWEAL who will make the final decision following consultation with a panel of experts...

...The feast is one The accounts of the Transfiguration all something about to kill something else that that shows us what Christ came to do, what speak of the same three witnesses, Peter, this feast occurs on the anniversary of the we are called to become, and at the same James, and John...

...The forgetting is frightening...

...HSS Secretary, Louis "fair" speech...

...All other essays will be returned to their authors after January 1. COMMONWEAL 15 Dutch Street New York, New York 10038 were able to sleep--sleep in fact means more here than their weariness, but our own state--and when they saw his real fate, when they saw that crucifixion was the fate of the chosen one, they abandoned him...

...The prize-winning essay will be published in COMMONWEAL' S January 17, 1992 issue...

...It is hard to avoid the fairly when its issues are being considered and debated, but conclusion that what Kobin called an "agonizing decision" is it has precious little concern for the opposing views of others a consequence of the fragile state of our public discourse and even in the gay community...

...The prize is intended to encourage and support new ecumenical and interreligious ideas and perspectives...

...Immortal means not dying...

...It is important to ask why our languages have wound up structured this strange way...

...We are to be what Christ is...

...athanatos" means the same thing in Greek...

...And, irony of ironies, KCET the Church" or KCET's decision to show it...

...Deadline: October 1,1991...

...This stupefaction in the face of glory is the best that can be expected of the best of disciples...

...The apparent dilemma of KCET to show the video or not, In this instance, the Catholic church has been the object of seems to raise questions about freedom of speech...

...Like a lot of good Greek words it speaks of something positive (remembering) in negative terms...

...Or is some vision buried there...

...That human need to control and dominate leads to the light of Hiroshima, and is the most profound forgetting...

...Is it a mistake...

...he is hour of greatest danger, and flee in fear 27 September 1991:535 when he was threatened with death...

...Peter, James, and John are are made...

...across its web and realized as I watched as the Transfiguration is...

...We can speak of the Resurrection as "against death," and of attention to the central mystery of our faith as a deliberate movement "against forget- ting...

...The church was always clear about the difference: divinity is his by nature, ours LIGHT IN AUGUST by adoption...

...OF SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey the first-born of many...

...that the witnesses of his glory should, even meant to share, in the other a light made At the Transfiguration Jesus is revealed having seen this, deny him--and then go to destroy anything human--is, if you want as the fulfillment of the law and the on after Pentecost to be his witnesses...

...But others video, appeal to our sense of fairness, we might say they want have been the object of similar treatment...

...It is an idolatry which puts human will above all that allows us to for- get the divine image, in us and in everyone...

...Announcement of Prize: December 15,1991...

...The center of the eucharistic prayer is called in the Greek of the New Testament the anamnesis...

...The context of the Transfiguration to Gethsemane--and fall asleep during his uncreated light of Tabor, the ultimate affir- story in the whole of the Gospels is another agony, and later deny him...

...It is possible not only to forget what Jesus has done for us, but to remember it in a way that amounts to forgetting--to limit it, making it a specifically "religious" understanding, ignoring the fact that all human reality is illumined by the uncreated light of Mount Tabor...

...Even in the moment of witnessing the Trans- figuration, Peter offers in a stunned way to build booths for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah--"he did not know what to say, for they were afraid," Mark says, and Luke says simply, "not knowing what he said...

...This essay will become the property of the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute...

...But mem- ory, the attempt at understanding what hap- pened, is especially well-served by seeing it in this upstream way, "against forgetting...

...The editors reserve the right not to award the prize...

...but we have tended to empha- THE TRANSFIGURATION & HIROSHIMA size the difference without looking at the gift, the fact that this divinity has been offered as life to us, for our taking, our sharing...

...The literal translation of the word often translated as "memory" or "remembrance" is "against forgetting...

...The by a light unlike any seen before, convers- one more grotesque coincidence among mystery of the Incarnation is that it is not ing with Moses--representative of the many, but to ignore it would be as stupid a single miraculous moment, but a sign of law--and Elijah--representative of the as to make too much of it...

...The difference is easier to bear than the similarity...

...Anamnesis is essential to our work as Christians...