Sunday/Transfiguration

When President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935, life expectancy in America was only 59.9 years for men and 63.9 for women. Fast forward to today, and these numbers have increased to 74.8 for men and 80.2 for women.

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Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson has allocated roughly $150 million for immigrants in his 2024 budget, but a recent agreement with state and county leaders demands another $70 million.

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Sunday/Transfiguration

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Despite its drama, it was never formalized in the Church until after the Tenth Century. In it, Christ is transfigured on a mountaintop with Moses and Elijah while Peter, James, and John watch in amazement.

It is often seen as the point in the Gospel where Christ and the apostles are both energized by this glimpse of heaven.

But it is a remarkable, almost posed, artistic, and philosophical moment. A distillation of the New and Old Testament conflicts and resolutions, it is a potent mixture of spirituality and humanity, Christ and the great prophets and the apostles all swirling in opposition and conformity.

And light.

We have always had great respect for light. In Genesis, right after the creation of the formless heaven and earth, light displaces the dark. Even Lucifer (appearing only once in the Old Testament) means "the morning star" or "light-bringer."

The architect Wren, on deciding to avoid stained glass windows in his churches, said ""Nothing can add beauty to light." 

Edison's first commercial electric light system was installed on Pearl Street in the financial district of Lower Manhattan in 1882.

Before that, the world was lit only by fire.

The World
by Henry Vaughan

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.
The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
Wit’s sour delights,
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
Yet his dear treasure
All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flow’r.

The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow,
He did not stay, nor go;
Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found,
Work’d under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
That policy;
Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
Were gnats and flies;
It rain’d about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.

The fearful miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves;
Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugg’d each one his pelf;
The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,
And scorn’d pretence,
While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,
Said little less;
The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;
And poor despised Truth sate counting by
Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I) thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,
The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God,
A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he.
But as I did their madness so discuss
One whisper’d thus,
“This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,
But for his bride.”