Second Sunday of Lent – Year C- March 17th, 2019
Roman Rite
GN 15:5-12, 17-18; PS 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14; PHIL 3:17—4:1; LK 9:28B-36
The Gospel of the Transfiguration
Ambrosian Rite
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman
DT 6a:11, 18-28; Ps 118: GAL 6:1-10; John 4:5-42
1) The way of the cross is transfiguring.
Today’s Gospel traces the Lenten journey, making us climb with Christ on Mount Tabor to participate in his transfiguration by praying. For the Christian, praying is not escaping from reality and from the responsibilities that it entails, but taking them to the end, trusting in the faithful and inexhaustible love of the Lord. For this reason, the verification of the Transfiguration is, in a way that is absurd to us, the “disfigurement” of Jesus during the passion. In his now near passion, Jesus will experience mortal anguish and his face will be disfigured, but He will entrust himself to the will of the Father. In the hours of agony, the Redeemer’s prayer will be a pledge of salvation for all. Christ, in fact, will beg the heavenly Father to “deliver him from the dead” and, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes, “was heard for his piety” (5: 7). The Easter of resurrection is proof of this fulfillment.
On the journey to the Easter of Christ and with Christ, the Roman liturgy of the Second Sunday of Lent makes us climb Mount Tabor where Jesus changed in appearance in front of Peter, James, and John. The three apostles received the gift of seeing Jesus “transfigured” in the splendor of his divinity so that they would be able to bear the sight of the Master “disfigured” by the Passion that is the required condition of the Resurrection of the Redeemer whose passionate love recreates and redeems.
However, I think that Jesus did not want only to prepare his disciples to his and their passion. Jesus transfiguration reveals what He already is, the Son of God, in order to indicate one of the main characteristics of the disciple: the ability to listen. God testifies that Christ Jesus is his Son” This is my chosen Son; listen to him” (Lk 9:35-36) Why? Because the disciple that listen to Jesus changes in appearance, the one who listens to Christ becomes like Christ. To listen to Christ is to live of Christ, to live the Son’s life. By listening to the Word our life is transformed into the life of sons and daughters of God. It is essential to listen to him in his Word, guarded in the Sacred Scripture and proposed by the liturgy. In fact, ” The pages of the Bible cease to be writings and become living words, spoken by God. It is God, who through the reader, speaks to us and questions us, we who listen with faith. The Spirit “who has spoken through the prophets” (Creed) and has inspired the sacred authors makes the Word of God that “we hear outwardly have its effect inwardly”. (Pope Francis, 31 January 2018).
In this period of Lent, let’s be devoted to listening to Christ so that we can have a pure heart and a wise mind, and to listening to Him in His Word, which daily is announced and broken in our communities. If we listen to Him, we feed ourselves with a food rich enough to sustain us through the journey toward the Easter of the Resurrected, who is Beauty, Goodness and Truth. Let’s persevere to be “listeners of the Word” and not of chatters and noises. Let’s listen to the Word of God with attention, let’s contemplate it fully, then let’s take it down from the mountain and bring it among men. The disciple takes this Word transfigured by the light that on Christ’s face is like the sun, and on his dresses is white like snow (Mt 17,2). Christianity is the religion of light. The Word who became flesh is the light that illuminates every man and every woman. It is mystic light at Nazareth at the annunciation, light in Bethlehem with angels and the star, light at the Jordan River with the dove of the Spirit, light on Mount Tabor, light at Easter and light of eternity.
- Not three tents but only one.
Choosing the Gospel of the Transfiguration, the Church invites us to restore our fragile and tired faith with the energy of the light. God gives us a foretaste, but we must give Him upfront credit without limits like Abraham who trusted God’s promise bringing into play his own existence.
We are like these three friends of Jesus to whom He gives comfort saying “Be brave, have faith, get up and don’t be afraid, I’ve conquered the world” (John 16, 33).
We, like Peter, are confused (“he did not know what he was saying.”) and full of fear (the three apostles “became frightened”), but let’s listen in silence (“They fell silent”) to the Word of the Father who gives the affectionate command “Listen to Him”.
We, like Peter, can say” “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Like him, we would like to prolong the peace which comes from the encounter with Christ contemplated in his light.
Saint Peter was fascinated by that vision and, saying “it is good that we are here”, let us grasp the reasons of what is a dimension of the Christian life in this world: meditation. Meditation is not the prayer in which we ask for something from God. Instead, it is the prayer used to admire His wonders, to recognize His greatness and His limitless goodness, to praise Him and to thank Him for what He has given to us and for what he assures He will give us.
Contemplation is the prayer that becomes sight. If we set aside time to contemplate Christ, the Father covers us with His light and this light radiates from us on all the others.
If we want the experience of light to remain in us, we must not plant tents for Christ. We must be tents in which He can stay and transfigure us by being part of his Cross and his Resurrection. “It is necessary namely that you at first to be made associate of the suffering thus after a while you may be able to participate of his glory. There He himself will welcome you and his men into imperishable tents. There truly you will not prepare three tends one for Christ, one for Moses, and one for of Elijah, but only one tent for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and the tent you will prepare is you. Then God will be all things in us all (Cor. 15); when, as we read in Apocalypse, the tent of God will be by men, and they will be (Apoc. 21) his people and he will be God-with them (Apoc. 21. 3)” (Peter the Venerable, Sermon pour la Transfiguration )