Aug 6, 2006 / 22:00 pm

Speaking from his summer residence at Castelgandolfo, Pope Benedict XVI focused his weekly Angelus address on the Feast of the Transfiguration, which the Church celebrated on Sunday.  The Pope discussed with the hundreds of pilgrims gathered below his courtyard window, the mystery of the “light of God,” telling them to, "experience the joy of being children of the light."

The Holy Father noted that Mark’s Gospel describes Jesus appearing to Peter, James, and John in brilliant white clothing, “such as no fuller on earth could bleach them (Mark 9,3).”  Benedict told the crowd that the glowing light emanating from Jesus is the same light that appears on the day of his Resurrection.  “In this sense,” he said, “the Transfiguration seems to be like an anticipation of the Easter mystery.”

“The Transfiguration is an invitation to open our eyes to the heart of the mystery of the light of God present in the entirety of salvation history,” the Pope said.

The Holy Father discussed how light is present in the revelation of God, throughout scripture.  In Genesis God speaks the words, “Let there be light, and there was light (Gen 1,2).”  The light, the Pope said, shines forth as a reflection of God’s glory through the remainder of the creation account.

The Pope continued, mentioning Habakkuk where it says that, “His splendor spreads like the light; rays shine forth from beside him (Hab 4,3).”  “The light, it says in the Psalms, is the mantle in which God is robbed (Ps 104,2).”  In the Book of Wisdom, the Holy Father said, “the symbolism of the light, is used to describe the very essence of God: wisdom, the effusion of the glory of God, is ‘a refulgence of the eternal light’.”

Turning to the New Testament, the Pope said, “Christ is established as the complete manifestation of the light of God.  His Resurrection overcame forever the power of the darkness of evil.”

“In Him the light of God illumines in a permanent way the life of mankind and the path of history: ‘I am the light of the World,’ he affirms in the Gospel, ‘Who follows me, does not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (Jn 8,12)’.”

In this sense, the Pope said, this generation needs us, “to emerge from the darkness of evil, to feel the joy of the children of the light.”