The Second Sunday of Lent brings us to contemplate the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Transfiguration.
The first reading, from the Book of Genesis, speaks to us of God’s mission for Abram. Abram is commanded to go out from his own country, is asked to leave his own nation, and find a land that God himself will indicate. The experience of emigration, the experience of having to let go of one’s own homeland, to go to another land, was Abram’s experience. At the end, we are told that Abram did as the Lord commanded him to do. If we look around our congregation, we can see many people who are either descendants of immigrants or immigrants themselves. The Polish-Kashub people who settled these lands too went away from their own country, in search of land, religious and cultural freedom, and the ability to be their own people. The experience of immigration is almost always traumatic, because it involves a journey into the unknown. However, if we are convinced that we are following the will of God, doing the best for us and for our family, then even the experience of departure can be a blessing, as it was for Abraham.
The second reading, from the Second Letter of St. Paul to Timothy, begins with the words, “Join with me in suffering for the Gospel.” Immediately, however, St. Paul adds “relying on the power of God.” In this way, in times of suffering, we are to remember that we not expected to carry that suffering by ourselves. It is always with the power of God, it is always with God’s grace and assistance that we ask for in prayer, it is many times with people who God puts on our way, that we face the reality of the cross in our lives as Christians.
The Gospel on this Second Sunday of Lent is always the Gospel of the Transfiguration. As we ponder the Transfiguration, we realize that Christ’s cross and Christ’s glory belong together (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Homiletic Directory, 65). Glory and cross, cross and glory, go hand in hand. In our lives too, our experiences of the cross, and our experiences of glory, weave together. The Transfiguration is our hope that we too, please God, will be transfigured at the end of our lives, to participate in Christ’s glory. As St. Leo the Great says, “All the members of the Church, his Body, would…understand what transformation would be worked in them one day, since the members have been promised that they will participate in the honor that shone forth in the head”(https://dailygospel.org/AM/gospel/2023-03-05 , accessed on March 4, 2023).
The Transfiguration also says that all of God’s promises have been fulfilled. The Law and the Prophets – symbolized by the persons of Moses and Elijah – point to Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all of God’s promises to His people. There are no more promises to be fulfilled, Our Lord Jesus is the fullness of God’s revelation. In the Gospel, and through the Church’s Tradition, we have been given all the instructions, indications, and information necessary to have eternal life.
Sometimes, divine providence gives us a powerful experience that enclouds us like it did the apostles. The cloud comes to us suddenly, like a fog; the sight of Jesus Christ, which was so clear and palpable, becomes obscured. Still, in a mysterious way, even in the cloud of being disoriented, God’s presence is with us; God envelops us with His presence, like He enveloped Peter, James, and John. They were so afraid that they fell, with their faces to the ground. We too need Our Lord Jesus to come to us and touch us. He is the one who says to us, “get up and do not be afraid.”
Who knows better the strange twists and turns of human life but Mary, the Mother of God? She too had to walk step by step through her earthly pilgrimage. The Catechism states that “Mary…walked into the ‘night of faith’ in sharing the darkness of her son’s suffering and death” (CCC 165). Her steps took her through the night of faith, because of the darkness of her Son’s suffering. We too have our own “nights of faith,” when a thick fog rolls in, and things become unclear, unsure. In such times, and in all others, we should call upon the Blessed Virgin Mary’s intercession. May she too accompany us in Lent.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, March 5, 2023)