Daily Retreat 02/17/08
2008 Feb 17: SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT
Gn 12: 1-4a/ Ps 32(33): 4-5. 18-19. 20. 22/ 2 Tm 1: 8b-10/ Mt 17: 1-9
From today’s readings: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.... Lord, let Your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in You.... He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to His own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus.... Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves....”
Figure the Transfiguration
Perhaps you’ve noted the unchangeable pattern: EVERY Lent, the Gospel of the first Sunday of the season focuses on the Lord’s 40 day retreat to the desert, where He encountered Satan and his temptations. Then, EVERY Lent, the Gospel of the second Sunday of the season recounts our Lord’s Transfiguration.
It’s clear, of course, why the first Sunday’s scripture passage is ideal at the start of our own 40 day “retreat” in the penitential season of Lent, when through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, you and I and the whole mystical Body of Christ pledge ourselves to follow our Lord’s example in turning away from temptation and sin to embrace and live the Gospel more faithfully.
But the reasons why today, on the second Sunday of Lent, the Church directs our meditation on the Lord’s Transfiguration, are less obvious, though paradoxically so, since this miracle specifically was meant to obviate the apostles’ objections to the scandal of the cross. For by studying the Gospels, we note that the Transfiguration was immediately preceded by our Lord’s very specific prophecy about His impending passion, death, and resurrection. To put it mildly, such an announcement would hardly have been received by the apostles as “Good News” in any way at all! The Transfiguration, then, was intended to allay their confusion and fears, to help Christ’s followers understand that the glory of His resurrection would convincingly eclipse even the shadows of His passion and death.
A concrete comparison should shed a bit of light on the matter. If I were to hand you an unlit Roman candle, fountain, or even fancier firework, you could certainly imagine the potential packed therein for a pyrotechnic display and dazzling array of colorful sparkles that would add pizzazz to the drabbest night sky.
And yet, what if you had never personally witnessed any such fireworks? I, in fact, grew up in a region where most personal fireworks were illegal, so the magic boasts of those who manned the fireworks stands seemed, not just exaggerated, but positively outlandish! If such had been your lot, then you too, having been handed an unlit firework, would look at the crude tube I had presented to you with a certain skepticism, and if you fancied the firework’s colorful wrapping, you might even find folly in my plan to subject and sacrifice it to the flames.
But after a demonstration of what even a little flower firework can do, the exciting suspense of setting off a huge fountain would be surely something to look forward to! Then, there would be no hesitation in lighting the wick which would indeed ruin the outer package but only in order to release the payload inside, so that it would glow and erupt into a polychromatic blaze of flamboyant flames and sparkling sparks that would fight even night with the brightest light!
So the Transfiguration of Jesus was a stunning preview for Peter, James, and John of the ineffable glory of the Resurrection. They couldn’t imagine why Jesus, whom they loved enough just as He was, should suffer death to His bodily self. And yet when He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light, then they began to see (and so you and I re-Lent to see!) how much more there is to Him than just the outer package of His bodily self! Then the perturbing Messianic prophecies of Moses and Elijah no longer seem so outlandish, or even exaggerated, for only when the wick of the Cross was lit could one look forward to the Resurrection, with its polychromatic blaze of the greatest grace that would vanquish the shadow of sin and ever put to flight death’s darkest night with God’s brightest light!
Gn 12: 1-4a/ Ps 32(33): 4-5. 18-19. 20. 22/ 2 Tm 1: 8b-10/ Mt 17: 1-9
From today’s readings: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.... Lord, let Your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in You.... He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to His own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus.... Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves....”
Figure the Transfiguration
Perhaps you’ve noted the unchangeable pattern: EVERY Lent, the Gospel of the first Sunday of the season focuses on the Lord’s 40 day retreat to the desert, where He encountered Satan and his temptations. Then, EVERY Lent, the Gospel of the second Sunday of the season recounts our Lord’s Transfiguration.
It’s clear, of course, why the first Sunday’s scripture passage is ideal at the start of our own 40 day “retreat” in the penitential season of Lent, when through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, you and I and the whole mystical Body of Christ pledge ourselves to follow our Lord’s example in turning away from temptation and sin to embrace and live the Gospel more faithfully.
But the reasons why today, on the second Sunday of Lent, the Church directs our meditation on the Lord’s Transfiguration, are less obvious, though paradoxically so, since this miracle specifically was meant to obviate the apostles’ objections to the scandal of the cross. For by studying the Gospels, we note that the Transfiguration was immediately preceded by our Lord’s very specific prophecy about His impending passion, death, and resurrection. To put it mildly, such an announcement would hardly have been received by the apostles as “Good News” in any way at all! The Transfiguration, then, was intended to allay their confusion and fears, to help Christ’s followers understand that the glory of His resurrection would convincingly eclipse even the shadows of His passion and death.
A concrete comparison should shed a bit of light on the matter. If I were to hand you an unlit Roman candle, fountain, or even fancier firework, you could certainly imagine the potential packed therein for a pyrotechnic display and dazzling array of colorful sparkles that would add pizzazz to the drabbest night sky.
And yet, what if you had never personally witnessed any such fireworks? I, in fact, grew up in a region where most personal fireworks were illegal, so the magic boasts of those who manned the fireworks stands seemed, not just exaggerated, but positively outlandish! If such had been your lot, then you too, having been handed an unlit firework, would look at the crude tube I had presented to you with a certain skepticism, and if you fancied the firework’s colorful wrapping, you might even find folly in my plan to subject and sacrifice it to the flames.
But after a demonstration of what even a little flower firework can do, the exciting suspense of setting off a huge fountain would be surely something to look forward to! Then, there would be no hesitation in lighting the wick which would indeed ruin the outer package but only in order to release the payload inside, so that it would glow and erupt into a polychromatic blaze of flamboyant flames and sparkling sparks that would fight even night with the brightest light!
So the Transfiguration of Jesus was a stunning preview for Peter, James, and John of the ineffable glory of the Resurrection. They couldn’t imagine why Jesus, whom they loved enough just as He was, should suffer death to His bodily self. And yet when He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light, then they began to see (and so you and I re-Lent to see!) how much more there is to Him than just the outer package of His bodily self! Then the perturbing Messianic prophecies of Moses and Elijah no longer seem so outlandish, or even exaggerated, for only when the wick of the Cross was lit could one look forward to the Resurrection, with its polychromatic blaze of the greatest grace that would vanquish the shadow of sin and ever put to flight death’s darkest night with God’s brightest light!
posted by FrPitstick | 2/15/2008
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