Cycle B - Year I:

1 March 2015: Second Sunday of Lent

(Liturgical color: Violet)

Mark 9:2-10

The Transfiguration of our Lord: a foretaste of God's glory!

Watching the movie "The Passion of Christ" I was overwhelmed with emotions. The movie was so realistic and brutal, like I was actually watching our Lord's suffering on the way to Calvary.

The Apostles have seen for themselves our Lord's passion. It must have been frightening and depressing for them. It is not hard to imagine their gloom and despair as they witnessed Christ's terrible suffering and death. The experience might have shaken their belief in the man called Jesus, whom they thought to be the Messiah. So how did our Lord prepare the disciples for his coming passion and death?

In this Sunday's Gospel, the evangelist Mark wrote about an amazing experience of the chosen disciples. "... Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white.... Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus." (Mk 9:2-4)

The transfiguration of our Lord was a unique display of his divine character and a glimpse of the glory which Jesus had before He came down to earth in human form. In that holy mountain, the chosen disciples had experience "the already of the not yet", so that the "inner circle" of Jesus' disciples could gain a greater understanding of who Jesus is. These disciples who had only known Jesus in his human body now had a greater realization of the deity of Christ, even when perhaps they could not fully comprehend the experience at that time. Nonetheless, this experience gave them the assurance they needed when the passion and death of our Lord would transpire.

True enough, these "privileged" disciples never forgot what happened that day on the mountain. They bore witness to it to the other disciples and to countless millions more down through the centuries. They were witnesses of our Lord's transfiguration event and wrote of it later:

St. John wrote of it in his gospel account: "We have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth." (Jn 1:14);

St. Peter wrote of it as well: "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.' We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain." (2 Peter 1:16-18)

On our sad journey of the Lenten pilgrimage, how do we reflect on the joy of the transfiguration of our Lord?

Holy Mother Church places the transfiguration event before us while our journey of Lent is still young, perhaps to assure us of the final goal, the glorified Christ. Our Lord came into the world to win such glory -- for Himself and for all of us. By His incarnation He took our human nature. By His passion and death He purified it. By His resurrection and ascension He gloried it.

But we cannot follow Peter's impulsiveness and hastiness in wanting to "glory" in the Lord's transfiguration immediately. First, we must accompany our Lord in His Lenten journey. There is no shortcut to our heavenly goal, that is to say we could not have the Gospel without sacrifice, holiness without prayer, virtue without effort, Communion without Confession, and Easter without Lent. We cannot escape taking our share in carrying Jesus' cross.

So we must take upon ourselves our share of the Lord's suffering and death so that we also will share in His eternal glory.

This Lent let us pray earnestly and ask God to deepen our faith in His love and His loving plans for us, especially when they do not make sense to us. Let us seek the grace to embrace our crosses and allow them to increase our virtue and to be a channel of God's strength.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!