SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT "B"

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

High above Jerusalem, on Mt. Tabor, Jesus was transformed and transfigured – his human body infused with grace and divinity, was a dazzling sight. The Son of God in his splendid divinity, more brilliant than a million suns, and shining white as snow. The Old Testament figures of Moses and Elijah appeared, absorbed in conversation with Jesus. It is easy to sympathize with the combination of fear and sheer delight felt by the disciples, Peter, James and John. Peter, confused but wanting somehow to hang on to this moment of glory, blurted out the suggestion that they could put up shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. It was not to be. They could not prolong this moment but had to come down from the mountain and carry on their work in the world. The disciples had to realize that even though they saw the “Beloved Son” pointed out by the Father in his glory that was natural to him, that beautiful Son could not get away with glory but must descend Tabor to ascend Calvary. That’s the kind of God we have come to know: a God whose glory is spelt out in bleeding wounds, darkness and death. A God pretty much like us, worse than us. In the Bible God makes himself known. His presence is realized in the here and now of human life. Jesus stayed with that human life, was wholly involved in it. In him that human life was transformed and transfigured by the presence of divinity. And on Mt. Tabor Peter saw it and knew it. His words came tumbling out: the best he could find in his wonder and awe at what he saw and heard. “Master, it is good to be here.” We too can expect the Lord to allow us to glimpse and taste the heavenly life to which we are called. This can come in a variety of ways: a blessed time of prayer, an inspired insight into Scripture, or a sharper awareness of the victory Jesus won for us, or simply the loving closeness of God. Such moments of anointing and blessing are God’s gifts to strengthen us so we too can take up our cross and follow Jesus Christ. We are all awkward customers, plagued by our own follies and by the very many difficulties of being human in a world that runs to so much inhumanity. We are not east to work with or to work through. Yet we can say and with all others who bear witness to the work of God in the midst of us, “It is good to be here.” Good to be where God is known as he was to Peter in the person of Jesus Christ. But to use the word “here” is never enough, for no single place can ever contain God. To be part of God’s whole creation sharing each in his or her own way in the building of God’s kingdom here on earth. We are together, close or far apart, working for one and the same thing, however difficult it may prove to be: to build God’s tabernacle on earth as Peter wanted. There is one body and one spirit, even as we are called in one hope. All this we share, and we can say with thanksgiving and wonder:”Lord, it is good to be here.”

2) Exodus of Transfiguration.

Today, the exodus, the path of liberation that we are called to fulfill, is the one of contemplation. Through contemplation, prayer becomes gaze, and our heart, which is the “center” of our soul, opens up to the light of Christ’s love.

In this way, we can understand the journey that the liturgy of this Sunday indicates to us: that of a pilgrim who carries out the exodus that leads him to the Promised Land: eternal Life with Christ.

It is a journey full of nostalgia, precariousness, and weakness, but also full of the hope of those who have the heart wounded by the beloved. It is full of light because “the ‘brightness’ that characterizes the extraordinary event of the Transfiguration, symbolizes its purpose: to illuminate the minds and hearts of the disciples so that they can clearly understand who their Master is. It is a flash of light that suddenly opens itself on the mystery of Jesus, and illuminates his whole person and his whole life “(Pope Francis).

It is true that to follow the Lord is to be crucified with Him. It is true that at every step the wounds of pain pierce our heart. Evil is true, sin is true, death is true. But the Transfiguration of everything is also true, and the beauty that surpasses and gives meaning to everything is true: “In the passion of Christ … the experience of beauty receives a new depth, a new realism. The One who is “Beauty in himself “ let himself be struck on his face, covered with spits, crowned with thorns … But in that disfigured face appears the authentic extreme Beauty of the Love that loves” to the end ” showing itself stronger than any lie and violence.

An example of how to grasp this transfigured beauty comes to us from the consecrated virgins. In a special way, these women testify to three specific aspects of the Christian.

The first is to give themselves in complete abandonment to Christ because they lovingly trust his Love, “who does not hesitate to undress from external beauty to announce the Truth of Beauty” (Joseph Ratzinger). With their consecrated virginity, these women announce precisely the crucified beauty, the transfigured beauty, his beauty which is our true beauty.

The second is that of witnessing, in their life lived as a virgin, the need to descend from the Mount to return to the evangelizing mission of the Lord, a mission that passes through the Cross and proclaims the Resurrection that is nothing else but the Transfiguration made eternal in the Humanity of the Lord.

The third is to show that listening is the main dimension of the disciple of Christ. Today’s Gospel tells: “This is my beloved Son: listen to him!” (Mk 9: 7).

In a world that has the habit of speaking so many words (it would be better saying: to chat), these women are constantly listening to the Word and, following the example of the Virgin Mary, become “virgins of listening and mothers of the Word”.

The Father asks each of us to be a listener of the Word, whose words are words of life because, through the Cross, they purify from every dead work and unite to God and to the brothers.

This Word needs a place (our heart). It needs to go deep in it and to die there like a seed, to put root, to grow, to sprout and to resist the storms and bad weather like a house built on the Rock.

For it to be heard, this Word needs attention, but also silence. Inner and outer silence are necessary for this word to be heard. This is a particularly difficult point for us in our time. In fact, ours is an age in which meditation is not encouraged; on the contrary, sometimes, one gets the impression that there is a fear of detaching himself, even for a moment, from the river of words and images that mark and fill the days.

The secluded life of the consecrated virgins shows how important it is to educate ourselves to the value of silence because with it we accept the Word of God in our personal and ecclesial life, valuing meditation and inner calm. Without silence one does not hear, one does not listen, one does not receive the Word and what it says. This observation of St. Augustine is always valid: Verba crescente, verba deficiunt – “When the Word of God grows, the words of man become less” (cf. Sermo 288: PL 38.1307; Sermo 120.2: PL38 , 677)