Feb. 24, 2013: 2nd Sunday of Lent (C)
Have you climbed a mountain before? About the closest thing to a mountain experience around Donaldsonville area is atop of the Sunshine Bridge which is 170 feet high. When I was a seminarian, my mom, sister, and I decided to make a pilgrimage to some of the holy sites in France. We rented a car in Lyon and drove about 3 hours to a place where Blessed Mother appeared to two children in 1846. It is located at 6,000 feet elevation on a peak of one of the mountains in the French Alps. In the evening, after the candlelight procession, my mom and sister went inside to sleep. Even though it was dark, I felt something or someone beckoning me to climb the mountain. For me, it was like Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray. With only the light from the moon, I climbed the mountain carrying a rosary in one hand and clutching the grass with the other hand. It took me 40 minutes to climb and I finished two rosaries on the way. I was expecting something spectacular similar to what Peter, James, and John experienced--the Transfiguration of Jesus. Instead what greeted me at the top was silence and a wooden cross planted in a mound of rock. I kissed the arms of the cross and sat down and began to wonder why God called me up there. Then a memory came back of a phone call I received from a teenager when I was volunteering at a crisis hotline. The caller was so distraught that she did not have the desire to live anymore. I asked her, “Do you have any experience of God that you can share with me?” She rummaged through her memory, and said, “I remember a few years ago when my parents took me to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I was all alone at the top of the mountain. I got a sense that even though I was an insignificant dot on the top of a grand mountain, I knew that God cared about little me. I was filled with so much peace knowing that I was so loved.” Somehow from recalling that memory, she regained a sense of purpose.
Do you have an experience like that, whether through nature or through a spiritual event, where God broke through to you and woke you up? A religious sister told us seminarians, “Gentlemen, God gives you these wonderful experiences so that on the days when you feel overwhelmed, challenged, and ready to give up, you will recall these moments of grace and persevere.” I have not forgotten her words. My sister still remembers that once when she was praying the rosary when she was twelve years old, Blessed Mother’s statue in front of her came alive and smiled at her. The memory of that smile assures her, even today, that heavenly Mother is guiding her.
We all have mountaintop experiences that we cherish and wish we could hold on to them. Peter, James, and John wished they could stay on the mountain, but the glorious vision they had seen lasted only long enough for the disciples to hear Heavenly Father’s voice: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” They were suddenly back in reality. But what was the true reality? All along, Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, was the true reality that they failed to recognize. We are like that too! Often our indifference, failures, hurts, and overwhelming events keep us from listening to Jesus who is our Way, our Truth, and our Life. Our lives preoccupy us and put us to sleep, while glory shines out and reveals God’s presence in our midst.
Can we come to understand and appreciate transfiguration in the most ordinary things of life, where God still comes to meet us? For that teenager, she needed to be reminded that in her ordinary, everyday life, God’s hand is busy reaching out to transform and transfigure her. This is true for all of us, that God breaks through to us in the ordinary moments of our lives, not just the mountaintop experiences.
