On the 1st Sunday of Lent, every year we hear the
Gospel story of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, how he fasted for forty days, how
he was tempted by the Devil, and how he remained faithful to his Father.
On the 2nd Sunday of Lent every year, we hear the
Gospel story of Jesus’ transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
Jesus had taken his three closest apostles, Peter, James,
and John, up Mount Tabor and there, he was transfigured in front of him—Jesus
began to radiate this dazzling light, the glory of God shown about him. If that wasn’t enough, Moses and Elijah
appeared with him. Moses representing
the law, Elijah representing the prophets—showing Jesus to be the fulfillment
of both the law and the prophets. And if
that’s not enough God the Father spoke from heaven saying this is my beloved
Son, listen to Him.
Even blockheads like the apostles could see that Jesus was
very special. God himself spoke and
attested that Jesus was his Divine Son.
How could Peter, James, and John not have Faith. We might even say that Faith was easy that
day.
Why did Jesus do this strange thing? Why did he expose his apostles to this
display?
Right before the Eucharistic prayer today, the preface will
speak about the why of the transfiguration. The priest will pray: “For after he had told
the disciples of his coming Death, on the holy mountain he manifested to them
his glory, to show, even by the testimony of the law and the prophets, that the
Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection.”
“the Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection. In the Transfiguration Jesus was helping to
prepare his apostles for the horrors, the suffering, and the tortures of His
Passion by giving them a little glimpse of Easter, so that when the darkness of
Good Friday came, they would not lose faith, but remember the dazzling light in
the darkness.
One of the important dimensions of ordained priestly
ministry is to be with people in times of darkness. So often, when we visit the funeral home,
walking in to this time of sadness, gloom, darkness, and death, the family of
the deceased has arranged around the funeral parlor, these displays of
pictures from the life of their loved ones.
Pictures from holidays, and weddings, and vacations, and happier
times. I think it’s very important at
those moments to share their happy memories of their departed loved ones—the
times of happiness, and joy, and light and life—the time that grandpa took us
fishing, the time when we took that family vacation.
In the moment, of loss, and sadness, and pain, and sorrow,
it is important to remember the times of light.
I really think that’s what Jesus was trying to do there on Mount Tabor
through the mystery of his transfiguration—to provide a moment of brilliant
light for his apostles to remember when things got dark.
As if what Jesus was saying to Peter, James, and John was
“You see me now in all my radiance, in my glory, it’s easy to have faith, it’s
simple to believe in me—that I have come to bring you freedom from the dark
powers of evil and life eternal. But
pretty soon, there is going to be another mountain, this one not called Tabor
but Calvary. Where I’ll be alone, and
I’ll be abandoned, and I’ll be treated unjustly, where I’ll be bloodied, and
beaten, and nailed on a cross and dead.
Pretty soon there will come a very dark Friday afternoon, when II will
cry out to my heavenly Father and I’m not going to hear his voice, like I did
on mount tabor. There will be a day
where it will hard to believe in me. So
don’t lose faith.”
Sometimes it is easy to believe in Jesus—to believe in his
saving Gospel—to believe that his word brings freedom to captives. But sometimes, perhaps for long periods of
time in our lives—it is hard to believe that Jesus’ Gospel brings life—it is
hard to believe in his promises.
So it’s important for us to remember, that each of our lives
will have both shares in Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We’ll have health, and we’ll have
sickness. We’ll have times of financial
success, and we might have times where you don’t know where the next house
payment is going to come from. There
will be joyful moments of friendship and times of intimacy, and times of
profound loneliness. There will be times
when our lives our filled with meaning and direction, and times where we
despair and feel lost.
What the Transfiguration teaches us is that God is with us
always—that the cross is not proof the darkness has won, or that God has
abandoned us. For Jesus promised us a
share in the cross—he promised it.
A great temptation is to forget God and ignore God in times
of happiness, and to curse Him in times of sadness. It’s a grave mistake, when we are riding
high, feeling good, to forget that God is the source from whom all blessings
flow. And it’s a grave mistake when
times get tough, when suffering comes, to blame God.” Rather the Christian message is to praise and
thank God in times of blessing, and to trust in him, to remember his promises
in times of darkness. That’s called
faith.
God is with us in times of consolation—in times of
sweetness, when the presence of His Spirit abounds; and times of desolation—in
times of dryness, when God seems so very far away. He is there.
Blessed Mother Theresa, as many of you know, underwent a
forty year period of extreme dryness in her prayer life. When she turned to God in prayer, he seemed
so very far away. But it was during that
time, that God perfected her ability to love others. She persevered in prayer, spending at least
an hour in adoration of the Eucharist every day; she persevered in service,
raising the abandoned out of the gutter; she preserved in faith, proclaiming
the truth of the Gospel in word and deed, all the while experiencing a forty
year Good Friday in her prayer life.
The Holy Father,
Pope Benedict wrote in his Lenten message that, “The Christian Life consists in
continuously scaling the mountain to meet God and then coming back down,
bearing the love and strength drawn from him, so as to serve our brothers and
sisters with God’s own love "
This morning from
Rome, the Holy Father addressed the thousands of people gathered in Saint Peter’s
square concerning his retirement. He
said, “The Lord is calling me to "climb the mountain", to devote
myself even more to prayer and meditation. But this does not mean abandoning
the Church, indeed, if God is asking me to do this it is so that I can continue
to serve the Church with the same dedication and the same love with which I
have done thus far, but in a way that is better suited to my age and my
strength.”
An important Lenten lesson today, as we continue our Lent
journey, reflecting upon all that Jesus suffered to save us from our sins, that
amidst the Mount Tabor’s and Mount Calvary’s of life—the joys and the
sufferings, we recall God’s presence guiding us to our eternal homeland for his
glory and the salvation of souls.
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