Hello, and welcome to Form Now. Welcome to part four of our five-part series on the Luminous Mysteries.

We're doing a Bible study, and we're going through each of the luminous mysteries.

My name is Ben Acres, and I'm the executive director of Formed, and joining me today is Dr. Elizabeth Klein,

who's a professor at the graduate school here at the Augustin Institute.

And we're able to have conversations like this because of your support

of the Mission Circle. So thank you for monthly donations that help us do shows like this, to the

work of the graduate school, to have students study the graduate theology and to go out into

the mission field and preach the gospel. So we're in the luminous mysteries. These luminous mysteries

were proclaimed by Pope St. John Paul II in 2002 when he wrote an apostolic letter. He says, we have mysteries on the infancy of Christ's life. We have mysteries related to the passion of Christ. We have mysteries related to Christ's resurrection and his mother's glorification. But we don't have mysteries related to the public mystery of Christ. And so he said, I want to focus in on those. I'm going to pick five of those. The first one is the baptism of the Lord. The second is the wedding of Canada. The third, the proclamation of the kingdom. And this fourth mystery is the mystery of light called the Transfiguration, which is the scene where Jesus goes up on the mountain. We're actually going to be talking about that. But he says of this mystery, this is the mystery of light par excellence. So there's, light's going to be a key theme for us to look at. Liz, what passage you want to go through in scripture? We're doing a Bible study on these mysteries. Which, which of the Gospels do you want to go through with the transfiguration? With Transfiguration, I'm looking here at Matthew 17, so I thought we would look at what Matthew's Gospel has to say about the transfiguration. And I'd like that you introduced it as the kind of luminous mystery parks. The long as you think of luminous, you think of light, but this is actually the only of the luminous mysteries where light is featured. but something that's kind of interesting, I think, about the light in the Transfiguration

is it's the light that reveals Christ to us, but there's also a light that hides God from us,

in a sense.

And, you know, when you, we think about the scene, right, where they're speaking to Jesus,

they see Moses and Elijah, but while he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved sun. And so the idea of a bright cloud is kind of confusing. Like, I don't have, have you seen a bright cloud? No, I don't know what the bright cloud is, right? Is it the sun coming behind the cloud?

Is that where is the cloud shining in itself?

No, it is kind of, it's a mystery.

It's a mystery, luminous mystery.

But the idea of this, the cloud, you know, we know that the cloud from the Old Testament is frequently indicates the presence of God. and we think of it as a presence, but in a way the cloud is kind of an absence or, you know, a kind of veiling of God.

And in fact, some scholars think that the cloud is kind of an absence or, you know, a kind of veiling of God.

And in fact, some scholars think that the incense in the temple are supposed to recreate this

kind of cloud. And so...

Which cloud of the Old Testament are you referring to? So I'm a viewer at home. I got my Bible

open to Matthew 17. And as we've seen in the other mysteries, that there are lots of

...