GENESIS 12: 1-4
PSALM 32: 4-5, 18-20, 22
2 TIMOTHY 1: 8-10
MATTHEW 17: 1-9
Just before my ordination to the priesthood, a priest friend of mine advised me to truly take in all that will be happening at the ordination ceremony. He said that when at times as a priest I find it hard going, the memory of this celebration would give me strength to continue.
The ordination was a wonderful experience, yet what sustained me in hard times was not the memory of my ordination but my belief in God, my conviction of God’s call to me to the priesthood and my own relationship with God. This is only possible with a continuing opening myself to God’s presence to listen to God. It calls for trusting in God and praying to God.
Even in marriage relationships: as wonderful the wedding day may be, it is not that that will sustain the marriage. The marriage relationship has to grow from there. It calls for a continuing nurturing of mutual love that will help both husband and wife to find meaning and grow in their relationship.
In today’s Gospel, we see Peter, James and John going up the mountain with Jesus. There they experience the transfiguration of Jesus. It is such a wonderful experience that they want to stay there.
One would have thought that this should have strengthened them. Yet we know that they later became afraid when Jesus was arrested and they all ran away. Why did they run? Shouldn’t they have known? The transfiguration event for the apostles was not enough because they did not understand.
For Jesus, the Transfiguration event had a different effect. It strengthen him to continue his journey to Jerusalem. The difference being Jesus knew God the Father and had a relationship with the Father.
My ordination could have been a transfiguration event for me, but I was more focused on it ending being stressed over it.
Abram too had an experience of God calling him. That did not guarantee an easy journey. He had to trust in God as he faced many a difficulty. In the second reading too, Timothy is encouraged to persevere and trust in God for our faith is worth persevering for. Perseverance is a willingness to live our faith, to listen to God because we believe in God.
A moment of religious experience though does not make the disciple. Peter, James and John were to become great saints not because they experienced the transfiguration but because they began to believe and live out that belief after Jesus’ death and resurrection. And it is in faith that they came to understand the truth of the Transfiguration.
Our faith is a journey that requires a continuous growing and nurturing in prayer and sacrifice.
Lent is a time to strengthen our faith in God. The danger for us is often we can become complacent in our faith. We can so easily go through our religious practices without much thought.
Lent is a time to reflect more deeply what it means to have faith in God; What it means that God loves us and has saved us?
The key is how deep is my desire for God in my heart?
The Mass for instance is an invitation to a transfiguration encounter with God for here we encounter the glory of Christ. And it can be real if we come with a desire for God in our hearts.
Life is full of ups and downs. It is our faith in God that will see us through our difficult times. And our faith in God does not become real just because of one spiritual event but is real only when we seek to nurture and grow in our relationship with God.
Merredin Catholic Parish 