February 21^st 2016.  Second Sunday of Lent

GOSPEL Luke 9:28-36

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

(Check us out on Facebook – Sunday Gospel Reflection)

GOSPEL Luke 9:28-36

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning. Suddenly there were two men there talking to him; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep, but they kept awake and saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As these were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’.  He did not know what he was saying. As he spoke, a cloud came and covered them with shadow; and when they went into the cloud the disciples were afraid. And a voice came from the cloud saying, ‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’ And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. The disciples kept silence and, at that time, told no one what they had seen.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus is the traditional reading for the Second Sunday of Lent. And it makes sense. Lent is about entering into moments of penance and darkness, believing all the while in a greater meaning, in a hidden beauty that lies beneath the struggles that we are experiencing. Jesus is actually transfigured and begins to shine with beauty while he is praying. Every moment of prayer should be a transfiguration for us! It should be a time to contemplate the hidden splendour of Jesus and to see the sense and beauty in our own struggles and tribulations. When we contemplate the beauty of Jesus, we begin to discover something about our own identity and the beauty that lies veiled in our own nature, a beauty that is obscured by our lack of communion with Him. God the Father says at the transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son, Listen to him!” It is in listening to the word of Jesus that we come to really understand the beauty and meaning that lies concealed beneath the sufferings and tribulations of our own lives. These tribulations become transfigured, begin to shine with beauty, when we contemplate them in the light of the beloved Son

The Lenten journey is symptomatic of a general feature of the Christian life: we must enter into moments of darkness and suffering, all the while believing in something good and beautiful that we cannot possess just yet.

The Second Sunday of Lent is traditionally devoted to a description of the Transfiguration. It is marvellously introduced by the reading from the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. In this passage Abraham is called to make an act of faith. He is asked to believe in that which he will not see directly himself. The stars in the heavens are to be a sign of his great legacy and fecundity. Abraham is asked to believe that the world is a veil concealing the great plan that God has for him. He must first enter into darkness and obscurity. That is how it is with things in general. The greatest things have an aspect of the Paschal mystery about them. During Lent we are asked to undertake the works of Lent, which are Paschal works – things that lead us to new life. This necessarily involves passing through moments of darkness. In order to love another person, I must move out of myself into the no man’s land between me and that person. I rediscover myself in the other by first losing myself - like a trapeze artist who leaves his swing and moves towards the other trapeze artist hoping to be grasped. Abraham will become the father of an innumerable group of descendants, but he must first go through an obscure tunnel in which he possesses nothing. He has emptied his hands and for the time being they are not being refilled. This is the moment in which the promise is accepted, a moment between night and day when one does not know if the night has ended yet, or if it will ever end.

Jesus is transfigured while he is praying. Every moment of prayer is a moment of transfiguration, a moment of contemplating and discovering the beauty of Christ, the beauty that is the key to understanding our own identity as well.

In Luke’s account of the Transfiguration, Jesus is lost in prayer at the moment that his countenance begins to change and his garments become bright as lightning. Prayer is this moment of emptying that is the characteristic of Lent as a whole. While I am praying, I may not appear to be doing anything useful or functional, but prayer is that which changes the meaning of everything. When I am lost or distressed, dismayed by the complications of life, it is necessary to stop and immerse oneself in the “uselessness” of prayer in order to find the right direction. Jesus is about to confront the greatest challenge of his mission and it is a moment when things must change their appearance. It is a time to discover the other side of what is real. To the apostles he no longer seems merely human but the Son of God. Things shine when they reveal their true nature and in this case we are talking about God himself! In God, things have their true completion. We discover the hidden secret of our own nature when we behold the countenance of God. Peter says, “It is beautiful for us to be here”. In other words, it is beautiful to see what there is beyond appearances, what is hidden in the humanity of Christ, the direction in which we are all heading, that which is hidden in each one of us. Beauty is not simply aesthetic symmetry; it is the hidden sense of the aesthetic, the secret of the aesthetic. This terror that we are feeling is actually in function of the Kingdom of Heaven that is on its way. When Peter and the others discover the secret of the identity of Christ, they are discovering something profound about their own identity. The Transfiguration impinges on everything about us. Entering into the Transfiguration is not a discovery of something new or different; it is the discovery of a secret that lies hidden in the mystery of Christ and humanity.

It is in listening to the word of Jesus that we come to really understand the beauty and meaning that lies hidden beneath the sufferings and tribulations of our own lives. These tribulations become transfigured, begin to shine with beauty, when we contemplate them in the light of the beloved Son

“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him”. How often we discover that the tribulation we are experiencing is actually a moment of encounter with God. Or we discover that this moment of suffering might be for a greater good. We are confronted with the enigma of reality and then all of a sudden its sense becomes clear to us. There is a distinction between the visible and the audible. The apostles see the beauty of Christ but they are asked to listen to him. When we look upon a person, we perceive only his visible aspect, but when we listen to him we are put in contact with his heart. Christ has much more to tell us than the beauty of his countenance can express. In other words, we need to move from the visible to the invisible through the faculty of listening, through the reception of a word. In summary, we often find ourselves in difficulty and tribulation. What must we do? Contemplate the beauty of the beloved Son of God and listen to his word! This can enable us to see the beauty and meaning of what we ourselves are going through.