On August 6, the Catholic Church celebrates the Transfiguration of the Lord — the mysterious transformation described in the Gospels, the appearance of the Divine greatness and glory of Jesus Christ before the three closest disciples during prayer.
At the end of the path of earthly life, the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to His disciples that he must suffer for people, die on the Cross and rise again. After this, He raised the three apostles — Peter, James and John — to Mount Tabor and was transformed before them: His face shone, and his clothes became dazzlingly white. Two prophets of the Old Testament — Moses and Elijah — appeared to the Lord on the mountain and talked with Him, and the voice of God the Father from the bright cloud that overshadowed the mountain testified to the Deity of Christ.
By the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Lord Jesus Christ showed the disciples the Glory of His Deity so that during His coming suffering and death on the Cross they would not be shaken in their faith in Him — of the Only Begotten Son of God.
To some extent, the Feast of the Transfiguration is associated and comparable to the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles. «If you want, let's make three bushes here», — Peter says to Jesus. This connection is confirmed by the tradition of consecrating fruits on the Feast of the Transfiguration (as during the Feast of Tabernacles). In the East, by the beginning of August, cereals and grapes ripen, which Christians bring to the temple for blessing as a sign of gratitude to God for giving these fruits. In the first centuries, Christians donated part of this harvest to the temple to celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist.
In Christianity, the consecration of fruits on the day of the Feast of the Transfiguration acquired a special symbolic meaning: the Transfiguration of Christ shows the new, transformed and gracious state that man and the world acquire by the Resurrection of Christ and which will be realized in the resurrection of all people. And all nature, which has become upset from the moment sin entered the world through man, is now waiting with man for the coming renewal.
The Feast of the Transfiguration has been celebrated by the Eastern Church since the 4th century. It was introduced into the Western Church calendar by Pope Calixtus III in 1457. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates this holiday on August 19. In the tradition of the Armenian Church, the Feast of the Transfiguration is included in the Easter cycle, is fluid and is celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Pentecost.