Transfiguration Moments

From the Gospel, Jesus took Peter, James and John and went up to the mountain to pray.  While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white…Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son;  listen to him.”  Peter said to Jesus, “Master it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  The sight of Jesus transfigured in his risen glory, flanked by two of the most significant leaders of their nation’s history, was unmistakably impressive to the disciples.  It is no surprise that Peter wanted to hold onto the moment, pitch some tents, and stay awhile.  Wasn’t this hour the summation of a career, as good as it was likely to get?  Why leave, when it was literally downhill from here?  From Peter’s perspective, it would be easier to stay on the mountaintop, but that wasn’t the mission of Jesus.

What Peter didn’t understand was something Paul would later explain, that Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.”  Jesus did not hold onto golden moments, or hang out in towns where the healings and teaching made him something of a superstar.  Rather, Jesus emptied something to take on our humanity.  That was the plan.  And he kept to the plan all the way to the cross.

What is the meaning and purpose of the Transfiguration of Jesus?  Jesus knew very well that His journey to Jerusalem, his passion and death, were going to be overwhelming for His followers.  They would need a faith perspective to make sense out of His suffering and death.  To sustain them in their moments of questioning and doubts and disbelief and desperation, Jesus wanted to provide His disciples with a glimpse of Him in his risen glory.  Being filled with the Transfiguration faith perspective, they could better trust that even His passion and death were part of the mystery of God’s saving love for us.

For ourselves as well, as we wrestle with the cross in the events of our lives, when we begin to question whether God is with us in our moments of crisis, may we in faith be able to experience the Transfiguration moments in our life story.  May we identify the moments when we are very much aware of the mystery God’s love in our lives.  What are they?  They are different moments for each of us.  Perhaps, as with Jesus, we are touched with our own mother’s love for us, the relationships of our lives when we are gifted with the love of another, the mystery and awe we experience in the presence of children, the beauty of a sunrise, and a moment of solitude when we experience the mystery of Christ within us.  These Transfiguration moments will serve as flashbacks to remind us of God’s unconditional love for us.  This is the grace of the Transfiguration event.

Instead of being discouraged by our failures and sins, may we rejoice in the mercy and forgiveness of God.

There is the story of the famous scientist Einstein who was on a train in Europe.  The conductor asked him for his ticket.  He checked his pockets and then his wallet and he wasn’t able to come with it.  Then the conductor, seeing Einstein’s frustration in not being able to find his ticket, said:  “Don’t worry Mr.  Einstein, we trust you.”  Sometime later, the conductor returned to the train car and saw Einstein now on his knees looking for the ticket under his seat.  The conductor again told Einstein not to worry about it.

Einstein responded:  “Thank you, but I need the ticket to remind me where I’m supposed to be going.”

In a similar way, we need the Lenten season to focus us on the meaning and direction of our lives as well.  Lent is a time when we, like Jesus, are led by the Spirit into the desert  -- into the depths of ourselves, into our inner wilderness, so to speak,  away from the world of achievements.

God led the people of Israel into the desert, to forge them into a new people.  The Spirit led Jesus into the desert to clarify the meaning of his Messiahship.  The Spirit leads us into the desert of Lent to reflect on how we have not always resisted temptation and have failed to love.  In the desert we seek mercy and forgiveness.  Lent is God’s gift to us to become more aware that we are God’s redeemed and forgiven people.

In this jubilee year of mercy, Pope Francis calls us to experience the merciful love of Jesus in this Lenten Season.  Rather than being discouraged by our failures and our sins, may we rejoice in the mercy and forgiveness of God.

Our mantra for the Lenten season are the words spoken to us as ashes were placed on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday:  “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

In the Lenten season, we seek to enter the same space as Jesus.  We are led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to experience fasting and self-denial and to be tempted and to be tested by the devil.  As disciples of the Lord Jesus, we are tested; we are tried during the Lenten season to gauge our commitment of turning away from sin and being faithful to the Gospel.  How do we deal with the Lenten call to embrace spiritual disciplines?  What fasting are we willing to embrace in the Lenten season?  What spiritual discipline of prayer can we make a commitment to?  What almsgiving, what are willing to tithe in the service of others?

We too are untested in the journey of discipleship if we do not focus ourselves on the call of God and the cost of discipleship in our lives.  On this the first Sunday of Lent, the challenge I give you is to honestly ask you to make a decision, to make some good choices as to embracing the spiritual disciplines of Lent. 

Today we also celebrate Valentine’s Day and the beginning of spring break.  These two beautiful events do not call into a desert wilderness experience of fasting and self-denial.  Rather, they are occasions for celebrations.

Among the many desires and attractions of our lives, the season of Lent calls to simplify, to focus, to embrace discipline, to express with Jesus in His suffering and the meaning of the cross in our lives.  In doing we celebrate the richest meaning of Valentine’s Day  -- a celebration of love.  We are grateful for the people who love us and whom we love.  And we give thanks to the Lord our God for the love that fills our spirit.  May we be mindful of the words of St John of the Cross:  “In the evening of life,  we will be judged on love alone.”

My hope for myself and for you is that you will encounter the Lord in prayer this Lenten season.  May this encounter fill you with joy and inner peace.  Make a decision, for example, to pray the Stations of the Cross on the Wednesday Evenings of Lent with other parishioners, experience the merciful love of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and celebrate the Eucharist more frequently during Lent.

May our Lenten prayer further motivate ourselves to share the merciful love of Jesus with others.  Participate in one of the corporal works of mercy:  Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless.  Make a difference in the lives of people in need.

For example, the rationale behind your generosity to operation rice bowl is that our Lenten sacrifices become the source of hope and change for some of our poorest brothers and sisters around the world.  May our Lenten spiritual disciples lead us to share what we have with those who are hungry and in need of our generosity.

Yes, we are called to make a difference as the disciples of Jesus.  What commitment will I make that will enhance the world, aid the poor, and provide resources for building up the kingdom of justice, love, and peace?

The story of Jesus’ temptations reveals to us the deepest thing about him:  he had total trust in his heavenly Father.  Jesus turned to the Word of God in the face of temptation and expressed his trust, his obedience to God’s plan for him. 

What about ourselves?  What tempts us?  What do the temptations of our lives reveal about us?  What are the areas of our lives in which Jesus is not yet Lord?  Hopefully our temptations, our sinfulness reveal our need for God’s forgiveness and mercy, and, indeed, we are the gracious recipients of the merciful love of Jesus.

In speaking about the temptations of Jesus and the temptations of our everyday life, in all the ways we are tested and tried, our ultimate goal is not spiritual discipline; rather the purpose of our Lenten journey is to encounter God.  The spirituality we seek is to know

Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives and to commit ourselves to witnessing to the love of Jesus in the world. 

What is the deep water of your spiritual life?

From the Gospel, Jesus said to Simon Peter to “put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  Simon was reluctant to start the process of fishing again because the fish just weren’t biting since they had caught nothing all night.  Peter was a professional fisherman,  and yet he did what the Lord asked him to do.   From the Gospel account, we know that when the nets went back into the water, the catch of fish was almost immediate.  The nets were straining from the number of fish.

Jesus’ presence has created abundance out of scarcity just as Jesus did at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee when he changed the water into wine.

As we pray over this Gospel account, I invite you to hear the call of Jesus to put out into the deep water -- the area beyond your comfort zone, where you can’t touch the bottom, where you have to take the risk of trusting more fully in the Lord’s grace for you, where you have to give up control of the situation and then to experience the abundance of God’s grace in extravagant ways.

What is the deep water in your spiritual life in which the Lord is calling you with the absolute confidence that His grace is sufficient for you?

Deep water can be the challenge of forgiving someone who has hurt you.  Who is the person in your life you have a hard time sharing the forgiveness that God so readily forgives you?

To look at the other side of the coin, deep water can be our need to ask for forgiveness of someone we have hurt.  It is very spiritual to say I am sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness.

We are here at Mass this moment.  We do this faithfully each week.  This is a beautiful form of prayer in our spiritual life.  But the Lord is a restless God and asks to take the next step in the spiritual life in going out into the deep water.  We are missioned to be prayerful each and every day.

The deep water in our prayer life could be reading the Scriptures each day and reflecting on how the Scriptures speak to our daily lives, or to take a few minutes to live with an attitude of gratitude giving thanks for the blessings of the day, or to spend time prayer in Eucharistic adoration on a regular basis.  We as a parish make a commitment to Eucharistic Adoration each day.  Maybe you are being called into the deep water of prayer in Eucharistic Adoration.  The psalmist simply tells us:  “Be still and know that I am God.”

What is the deep water of the spirituality of your sexual life?  While many of us admire the beauty of God’s creation in enjoying the presence of a person of the other sex, this can be wholly spiritual.  But it quite another thing to look at pornography in which people are being exploited for sexual pleasure.  We are to have a profound respect for the beauty and the dignity of one and all.

What is the deep water in your desire to provide for your financial security and the financial security of your family?  The deep water is the capacity to share that which you have previously thought to be

 impossible.  We are blessed financially and we know the words of the Lord that to whom much is given, much is required.  Most of us are capable of going into the deeper water of sharing a bit more that we are used to.

What is the deep water in the spirituality of your family life?  Without doubt, you love your family and would do almost anything for them.  But what about family prayer time?  Is prayer a foreign language in your family life?  It is not enough to have a strong personal life.  In what ways do you pray together as a family?  Do you pray together before meals, do you ever pray the rosary as a family, will you come together as a family to the Stations of the Cross during Lent?  Do you pray with your children before bed at night?

Pope Francis and Jesus himself has called us to be among the poor in ways you share your love and talents with those who are in need.  What we do the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to the Lord himself.

As Americans as we are surrounded by violence, prejudice, hatred, and terrorist threats, how do we do our part in developing a culture of love in which we seek to serve and care for all of God’s people?

While I have suggested multiple of going out into the deep water, I recommend that you choose one area of going out beyond your comfort zone and respond to the call of God to go into the deep water.  I assure you, insofar as you and I can trust more fully in God’s loving care for us, we will experience an abundance of God’s grace in the same way that Peter did in the Gospel account.

The conversion we seek is to respond God’s call to go out into the deep and lower our nets not just for a catch of fish but to be fishers of men, fishers of men,   in all the ways we are called to serve and help one another.  In the words of St John of the Cross:  “In the evening, we are going to be judged by love alone.”