Festival Diary – The Feast of the Transfiguration by Lucy Calcott
This blog series invites members and friends of WIN to prepare a ‘festival diary’, exploring the history and significance of specific rituals or outlining the routine of religious celebrations, as a window into the lived experience of people of different faiths. This week, Lucy Calcott, a founding member of East Sussex WIN and an art and poetry facilitator at Compass Arts in Eastbourne, shares how she’s marking the Feast of the Transfiguration.
The feast of The Transfiguration is celebrated by Catholics on the 6th August. It is a day of obligation when we are required to go to mass. It is one of my favourite feasts because there is a mystical element to it, when Jesus appears flooded in light to his disciples on the hillside. They are overwhelmed and fall into a kind of trance recalling the prophet Elijah.
This was said to have happened on Mount Tabor in the north of Israel. We visited there in 2013 as part of a Catholic pilgrimage and were moved by its unusual quality of light. Franciscan brothers have a monastery there, in which they welcome young people recovering from trauma and drug and alcohol abuse. It was very moving, because the young people were so kind to us; they prepared delicious food for the pilgrims, decorating the plates with beautiful blue hibiscus flowers. They were learning how to show gestures of love and kindness to people as part of their recovery.
This year, in my work with Compass Arts, we are creating an exhibition of painting, photography and poetry around the theme of illumination and unexpected light for the feast of The Transfiguration. It will go up in St Mary’s Church in Eastbourne. It has been an invigorating project, as we have recalled people and places that have moved us with their transformative light. It has brought us closer to the mysterious life force at the heart of everything that sometimes and unexpectedly erupts into visibility.
If you would like to submit your own festival diary, please contact info@wominet.org.uk.