2nd Sunday of Lent
12-13 March – St. Lambert
Gn
15:5-12, 17-18
Phil
3:17-4:1
Lk
9:28b-36
“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice
had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell
anyone what they had seen.
The 2nd Sunday of Lent in all three years of the
readings cycle focuses on the mystery of the Transfiguration. Human psychology
would have us maybe wishing for a like experience in our lives to confirm us in
faith and reassure us concerning God’s power to save. That is not exactly how
it worked for those three chosen disciples. In Year C we read of it as
recounted by St. Luke: they [Peter, James, and John]
had seen Jesus on top of Mount Tabor in His fullness and glory, true God and
true Man, our Creator and our Redeemer. They saw things they could not rightly
comprehend [there were Moses and Elijah, and then there was the bright cloud,
and of course the Voice which spoke]. The whole experience is very much out of
the ordinary and maybe that it why it took place on top of a mountain with just
three chosen witnesses. According to the accounts of the Transfiguration in both
Matthew and Mark, Jesus admonished Peter, James, and John afterward to keep
silence until after the Resurrection about what they had witnessed. This reads
somewhat different from our account today from St. Luke [They fell silent
and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen]. The utterly
extraordinary event of the Transfiguration did not translate into something
sustaining their everyday life in union with their Lord and Master, Jesus
Christ.
From
the point of view of religious experience and wonder, our Gospel has parallels
to the First Reading from the Book of Genesis which recounts Abram’s covenant
sacrifice sealing his agreement with Almighty God, giving to the Patriarch and
to his descendants the land from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the
Euphrates. In both Luke and Genesis, we find ourselves in the realm of promise
unto future fulfillment. Abram as yet childless at this point was to have descendants
as countless as the stars and God promised him a land for himself and his
descendants after him for all time. In the darkness Abram put his faith in God.
Whether
we are talking about Old Testament Promise or Gospel Truth marked by the
glorious presence of Moses and Elijah, the least we can say is that we are
dealing with things bigger than life, matters really too mysterious to be
simply comprehended at face value. Abram’s covenant sacrifice and wonderous experience
of God in the darkness was just as confounding as it was reassuring for him. In
the course of the Old Testament, from our perspective we benefit from the
history of the Chosen People and can see fulfilled God’s promises of land and
progeny for Abram. Fulfillment is there too in the case of the New Testament,
but not in such concrete fashion. Salvation is less tangible than are land and
countless descendants. The new covenant in the Blood of Christ, despite the
Resurrection and the return of Jesus to His Father’s right Hand in glory still
remains obscure by comparison to the promise God made to Abram, our father in
faith. The mystery of Christ’s Transfiguration points yes to Good Friday and
Easter Sunday, but still needs to be explained as does its fulfillment in the
glorious Cross of Our Lord Jesus.
The point I wish to make may seem obscure and far from the
everyday life of most Christians, but my hope would be that we can reflect
together for a moment on this aspect of our baptismal calling [I am talking
about how communicating with God in Christ is supposed to work in our lives]. The
historical distance between us and Jesus [2000 years] and God’s seeming silence
in our lives is real and can be burdensome, His seeming lack of engagement when
it comes to answering our prayers may cause us suffering. The point is that this
silence of God, His failure to engage us as He did Peter, James and John on
Mount Tabor does not justify our sadness or bitterness any more than it justifies
one person’s agnosticism or another’s atheism, whether it be practical or theoretical.
To live without God or simply to neglect Him in our daily lives because we have
not seen any sparks not only greatly impoverishes human existence, but it is
nonsense, bent on annihilating us in our very nature as human beings. Human
life is not ecstatic; it is constant and every day. We are, we exist in and for
God, because in the great plan of things God from all eternity wanted to share
His life and love with us, who are created in His image and likeness. This life
is a leadup to our ultimate end which is no less than to find ourselves where
we are destined to belong, namely in God Himself. From childhood, we know this
from the first question of the old catechism, “Why did God make me? God, in His
infinite goodness, made me to know, love and serve Him on this earth, so as to
enjoy happiness forever with Him in heaven.”
Most of us are not mystics, we don’t fall into a trance like
Abram before a God Who reveals Himself in mysterious ways. We are reassured or
confirmed in God’s presence and love thanks to the mediation of other people
here on earth, normally by our parents and other faith-filled, often truly holy
people who build us up or encourage us through life. We don’t hear voices
either in the dark or coming forth from bright clouds. It says something to say
very simply that we rest in God.
Believe
it or not, when it comes to dealing with the God experience in the life of your
average Catholic most priests spend a goodly part of their ministry trying to
keep people realistic by keeping them from getting all sorts of wild ideas in
their heads about God and how he reveals Himself in our world. The legitimate
longing for God, for a personal relationship with Him in Jesus is one thing,
but a totally other, which seems more a temptation or a distraction would be
expecting manifestations of God in our lives like the scene at the Transfiguration.
For His own purposes, God may gift someone with an extraordinary life event,
but it is neither our right, nor exactly parr for the course to expect such, as
if it were an essential part of our baptismal heritage. The key word in that
phrase is “expecting”. The Church would caution us against seeking or expecting
the spectacular in our life of faith. The kind of expectation I am referring to
and which is discouraged would be at cross-purposes to the Gospel, to our
Christian vocation, to what and who we are called to be in union with Christ.
Neither the very mysterious Genesis covenant sacrifice, with
blazing fire passing through the midst of this line of sacrificial offerings
cut in half and laid out on the ground, nor Abram falling into a trance amidst
the surrounding darkness, nor the brightness of Christ on Mount Tabor can
reassure us for our daily task. That perhaps explains the silence of Peter,
James, and John, or Jesus inviting them to hold the secret until after the
Resurrection. The extraordinary or glorious tends rather to separate us from
the everyday of this world of ours and from its joys and consolations, which
are meant to be sufficient for us ordinary folk.
A good Lenten practice is built around rather ordinary things
and does not drift far from the tried and true: simple, straightforward prayer,
penance, and almsgiving. Amidst the joys and sorrows of this life, you might
say we plug along until the Day of Resurrection. We leave Peter, James, and
John to keep the secrets and silence of the glory to be revealed in Christ at
His Coming.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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