Worth a Thousand Words: Transfiguration

Icon of transfiguration (Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, Yaroslavl), 1516

It was not the feast of the Transfiguration last weekend, but the Transfiguration was the Gospel reading. One thing that struck me when listening to the reading was that Jesus went up to pray. To pray.

Is this what his prayer was always like? Glowing, God's glory all around him, praying with saints all around him? It is fascinating to meditate upon this.

I love this icon because it strives to portray the unportrayable, but taken together with the Gospel (which strives to describe the indescribable) perhaps we can get a glimpse of Jesus at prayer.