The Feast of Transfiguration (Koodaara Perunnal)

The feast of the transfiguration of our Lord is celebrated each year on August 6th. The feast commemorates the transfiguration or metamorphosis of Christ on Mount Tabor, when our Lord appeared in His divine glory before the Apostles Peter, James, and John. The event of the Transfiguration is recorded in three of the four Gospels: Matthew 17:1-9 , Mark 9:2-8 , and Luke 9:28-36 . The epistle of Peter (2 Peter 1:16-18) and the Gospel of John (John 1:14) also briefly allude to this event. Peter describes himself as an eyewitness “of his sovereign majesty.”

The Transfiguration foretells the glory of the Lord as God, and His Ascension into heaven. It gives us a glimpse of the glory of heaven (later seen by John as he described it in Revelations and earlier as described by Daniel), where we shall see God face to face. Through grace, we already share in the divine promise of eternal life. The purpose of the Transfiguration was to encourage and strengthen the Apostles who were depressed by their Master’s prediction of His own Passion and Death.

Jesus took the Apostles Peter, James, and John with Him up upon a mountain, and while they were on the mountain Jesus was transfigured. His face shone like the sun, and His garments became glistening white. Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ, talking to Him. Saint John Chrysostom (Mor Ivanios) explains the presence of these two fathers of the faith, Moses and Elijah from the Old Testament in three ways. He states that they represent the Law and the Prophets (Moses received the Law from God, and Elijah was a great prophet); they both experienced visions of God (Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel); and they represent the living and the dead (Elijah, the living, because he was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire, and Moses, the dead, because he did experience death).

Peter declared how good it was for them to be there and expressed the desire to build three booths (booth or tent is translated into Malayalam as Koodaram കൂടാരം) for Moses, Elijah, and Christ. This reference to the booths could imply that this occurred during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles when the Jews would be camping out in the fields for the grape harvest; for this Feast had acquired other associations in the course of its history, including the memory of the wanderings in the wilderness recorded in the Old Testament book of Exodus. This is why this feast is also known as Koodara perunal (കൂടാര പ്പെരുനാള്‍).