The Prayer of Saint Ephraim - La Priere de Saint Ephrem

Benedict XVI says that the real experts in opening up God's words, the true interpreters of scriptures are the saints and he is right. I can prove it! There is one verse that I have always found very puzzling and it is "There are some here who will not taste death before seeing the glory of God" (Mark 9:1). I heard it said before that he was referring to the end of the world and that with time passing by, with every Apostle dying one by one (they all eventually got to taste death), some people began to wonder what Jesus really meant. This riddle was just solved for me and it was done the way Benedict XVI pointed out. On Saint Ephraim's feast day , I ran a Google search and found various Orthodox sites with information on his life and samples of his writings and I discovered the most amazing explanation of the verse mentioned above. Ephraim, a Deacon in the second century in Syria, wrote that what this verse is talking about is the upcoming Transfiguration moment. I have a very special fondness for the Transfiguration: do you realize that he was transfigured before his Passion? Right there and then, his divinity is affirmed in front of the 3 Apostles by two OT witnesses, the Law and the Prophet. It is a fantastic "Trinitarian moment" with the Father's voice pointing to the Son like a laser beam, the Son reflecting the Father's glory like a mirror and the power and love of the Holy Spirit bathing this moment in the most dazzling light and, in the process, opening up the minds of the witnesses to the truth of what is going on. In a nutshell, that is what I see every time the Transfiguration is mentioned.

So when I read what Saint Ephraim said:"The men whom he said would not taste death until they saw the image of his coming, are those whom he took and led up the mountain and showed them how he was going to come on the last day in the glory of his divinity and in the body of his humanity", a light went up in my mind! Eureka, I thought, that's what he was talking about! This verse is in all 3 synoptic Gospels and it is immediately preceding the Transfiguration in each one of them. I can't thank you enough, dear Saint Ephraim . You wrote: "He led them up the mountain to show them who the Son is and whose he is. Because when he asked them "Whom do men say the Son of man is? They said to him, some Elias, other Jeremias or one of the Prophets. This is why he leads them up the mountain and shows them that he is not Elias, but the God of Elias; again that he is not Jeremias, but the one who sanctified Jeremias in his mother's womb; not of the Prophets but the Lord of the Prophets who also sent them. And he shows them that he is the maker of heaven and earth, and that he is the Lord of the living and the dead. For he gave orders to heaven and brought down Elias and made a sign to the earth and raised up Moses. And so on the mountain he showed his Apostles the glory of his divinity concealed and hidden in his humanity". So Saint Ephraim was right, Jesus was alerting his disciples to what some of them were going to be allowed to see.