Mar. 13, 2022: 2nd Sunday Lent C
Mar. 13, 2022: 2nd Sunday Lent C
On this Second Sunday of Lent, Jesus invites us to climb with him on the Mount of Transfiguration along with Peter, James, and John. As we follow them to the summit, we too bring with us hearts hardened by hardships of life – sadness, disappointments, anger, and distrust. Perhaps like the drowsy apostles, we are half-asleep in our faith desiring to awake from the slumber. The main purpose of this climb is to pray and to stay awake to encounter the Father. Two other men in the Old Testament climbed mountains to encounter God – Moses and Elijah – both of whom Jesus conversed with at the top of the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses was entrusted with the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The grumbling people dissatisfied with the journey in the desert prompted Moses to seek God’s guidance on Mount Sinai. Moses was so transformed by that encounter, when he came down from the mountain after 40 days, people could not behold his radiant face. Elijah fled on foot for 40 days from Queen Jezebel who sought his life. While in a cave on Mount Horeb, he encountered God who spoke in a still, small voice to encourage and assure him of safety.
The Mount of Transfiguration and the Mount of Calvary are intimately connected. When Jesus was transfigured in his glory, the Father’s voice spoke to the three apostles, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” What does the Son say to the disciples? After Jesus and the disciples came down from the mountain, Jesus foretold of his suffering, passion, and death. Then he said, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matt 16:24-25) At the top of Mount of Transfiguration, the glory of Jesus’ divinity is shown; at the top of Mount Calvary, the glory of Jesus is hidden under humility and sacrifice. The greatest glory of God revealed at the crucifixion was his divine mercy through his self-gift of love.
We all struggle to understand how the glory is hidden in the hardships and sufferings of our life. Our preference is for what is comfortable and stable. We are naturally inclined to resist self-denial and suffering. Unchecked, our unrestrained indulgence of physical desires is mistaken as “freedom,” when in fact it is a slavery. Statistics say 77 percent of Americans watch internet porn at least once a month. About one-quarter of the adult population engages in binge drinking. We rely on the abundance of fine, comfort food as our stress reliever for emotional distress. Inadvertently, as St. Paul wrote, we may have become “enemies of the cross of Christ” whose “God is their stomach, their glory is in their ‘shame’, and their minds are occupied with earthly things.”
Jesus has the power to transform our lowly bodies with all their unruly desires to be like his glorious body. During Lent, the purpose of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is to learn to “take up the cross daily,” that is to learn freedom from domination by our bodily desires. We learn to be like Christ, to “bring all things into subjection” to him, including our disordered desires. In Exodus, Moses told the Pharaoh of Egypt to let God’s people go to the wilderness so that the people may offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. In Lent, our self-denial of our usual comforts help us experience an “Exodus” from slavery to our “stomachs,” that is physical attachments, so that God can soften our dull or hardened heart to love Him with a radiant heart full of love.
Every time we “climb the mountain,” that is to enter into genuine prayer, we awake from the drowsiness of our soul and glimpse God’s radiant love for us. When we “descend the mountain,” that is when we leave our prayer, we carry Christ’s love for his people in our hearts. Christ calls us to become His hands, His feet, His voice, His peaceful presence to those around us. When we get tired, hurt, bruised, frustrated during the day, may we remember that all the angels and saints, the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and St. George are walking and praying for us as we carry our cross as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Our whole journey of life is ascending the mountain that brings us to our Heavenly Father’s Home.
