Welcoming & Embracing the Stranger: Lenten Reflections with the Artwork of James Tissot

March 3, 2026 - Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Three disciples with three different attitudes. 

This is my interpretation of Tissot’s art attached to today’s readings, and it’s a fascinating take on the mystery of Transfiguration. As the disciples witness the glory of Jesus unfolding before them, the divinity of Christ affects each of them in a different way.

To the one on the left, glorious theophany of the Lord is a source of confusion, bewilderment, and awe; a mixture of fear and fascination, a genuine mysterium tremendum.

To the one on the right, Christ’s splendor produces resistance, defiance, maybe even pain. The brightness of the glory is too much; it hurts, it overwhelms, and it cannot be endured.

Finally, to the one in the center, Jesus’s Transfiguration becomes his own transfiguration; the moment of pure and complete surrender by which the very divinity of Jesus becomes received and reproduced in his heart. This last one is the standard, the path forward, the right kind of attitude, marked by humility and trust. 

Three disciples with three different attitudes. Which one am I? Which one are you? 

If I were to guess, the scribes and the Pharisees faced the same question. When Jesus grew more and more critical of their hypocrisy; when, instead of revealing His glory physically, He revealed it through the Word of the Father, they had to make a choice: to rebel and cover their ears, to observe from a distance with curiosity and fascination, or, to allow their hearts to melt and be shaped by the saving message of the One who loved them. 

We know that many of them chose wrong. We know that some chose right. 

Which one am I? Which one are you?  

Guard your Church, we pray, O Lord, in your unceasing mercy, and, since without you mortal humanity is sure to fall, may we be kept by your constant helps from all harm and directed to all that brings salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Rev. Pawel Tomczyk, Director of Pastoral Formation and Assistant Professor of Moral Theology

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