Cycle A - Year II:  

8 March 2020: Second Sunday of Lent

(Liturgical Color: Violet)

Readings:

First Reading:        Genesis 12:1-4a

Second Reading:   2 Timothy 1:8b-10

Gospel:  Please Read  Matthew 17:1-9

"Transfiguration: a glimpse of the Lord's divinity!"

Do you remember this popular Lenten song for Via Crucis?  The song speaks of the Lord's passion and suffering.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

But of course, none in our present generation were there in the time of Jesus to witness His passion and death.  So how can we relate?

Perhaps, this is where the movie "The Passion of Christ" may help to somehow imagine how it happened, apart from what is written in the Scriptures.  The movie presents Christ's passion in a very realistic though brutal way.  I watched the movie and was overwhelmed with emotions.

It must have been more depressing and frightening for the disciples who were witnesses to the Lord's suffering.  We can imagine their gloom and despair as they witnessed Christ's terrible suffering and tragic death on the cross.  The event must have shaken their faith in the man Jesus, whom they thought to be the Messiah and Savior.  How can a God suffer so much?

By a master stroke, I would say, Jesus prepared the disciples for His coming passion and death.  As they were travelling to Jerusalem, where suffering and death awaits Jesus, their journey was briefly interrupted by an experience of Jesus' transfiguration upon a mountain.  As He was there with select disciples, Jesus "transfigured" or appeared in glory with Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, and with Elijah, the greatest of the prophets.  The event was witnessed  by three of His apostles, Peter, John and James.  St. Matthew's account tells us tat Jesus' "face shone like the sun and his clothes become white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him."

The transfiguration event was a unique display of Jesus' divine character and a glimpse of the glory which our Lord Jesus Christ had before He came down on earth in human form.  In theological language, the transfiguration is an experience of "the already of the not yet" for the beloved disciples, so that the "inner circle" of Jesus' disciples could gain a greater understanding of who Jesus really is.  Thus, the 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 it at that time.  Nevertheless, the experience gave them the reassurance they needed after hearing the shocking news of Jesus' coming death.

Now these disciples who were privileged to witness Jesus' transfiguration  never forgot what happened that day on the sacred mountain.  They bore witness to it to the other disciples and to countless millions down through the centuries.  And they wrote of their witnessing the transfiguration event for all of us:

St. John wrote 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 fro 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)    

For Matthew's readers, the account on the transfiguration confirmed that Jesus indeed is the Son of God and pointed to the fulfillment of the prediction that He will come in His Father's glory at the end of age.

Thus, the central message of the transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God wants to share His glory with us.

And so, with the eyes of faith, we also see Jesus' transfiguration in the Holy Eucharist at Mass.  When we actually receive Him in the Holy Eucharist, He gives us the grace to sustain us in our difficult and challenging journey through this life.  Jesus in the Eucharist makes light our way of the cross in this life.  So that receiving Jesus frequently in the Holy Eucharist is a foretaste of His resurrection, like our own experience of the "already of the not yet" in our own time.  It is our assurance of God's ultimate victory over sin and evil in our world.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!