Category: Transfiguration

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Misfits For Christ

Second Sunday of Lent (A)

 

Did you miss me?  : )

First, a brief personal comment.  Then, my reflection on this Sunday’s readings.

Whenever I do not send out a post, it is usually because I have been hit with a significant headache and find it painful to look at a glowing display. On one Saturday, the headache was so bad, and my efforts to control it so futile, that I had no choice but to cancel Confessions and Mass that afternoon. Mass in front of a larger crowd – as one would get on Sundays – is doubly difficult for me. I feel the energy flow from all these people hitting me, as though I were standing right in front of a bright spotlight.  I also am very sensitive to certain sounds. It’s called hyperacusis. The crinkling of a cough drop wrapper, or someone whispering in the back, can be annoying, even painful, for me.  I cannot go to the annual Chrism Mass because it is not sensory-friendly, nor is anyone there likely to turn down the music volume just for me.  The solution is to have Mass only for small groups at the most.  This also is in harmony with my contemplative calling.  My psychologist’s recommendation agrees with this.  It looks like I’ll need to hang in there for another year before I can have this happen for me.  I simply can’t afford to make ends meet otherwise – not until I am old enough to begin to collect Social Security (June 2021).   Please keep me in your prayers so that I can survive in the meantime. Continue reading “Misfits For Christ”

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Amazed by God

Second Sunday of Lent (C): Luke 9:28-36

 

Maybe I’m amazed at the way you’re with me all the time,
Maybe I’m afraid of the way I love you.

Maybe I’m amazed at the way you help me sing my song,
Right me when I’m wrong-
Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you. 

– from Maybe I’m Amazed, by Paul McCartney

It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing

– from When You Say Nothing At All, by Don Schlitz and Paul Overstreet

 

Peter, James and John are on a mountaintop with Jesus. Jesus is praying. Suddenly, they see Jesus’ glory, and then see Moses and Elijah with Him. They are amazed and awestruck. They are left without words in the end, and tell nothing of this to anyone.

How can we, in our time, get a sense not only of what this was about for those who witnessed it, but of what it can say to us in our own time? Continue reading “Amazed by God”

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The Fourth Part of the World

Second Sunday of Lent (B)

“The earth… is divided into three parts, one of which is called Asia, the second Europe, the third Africa… Apart from these three parts of the world there exists a fourth part, beyond the ocean, which is unknown to us.” – St. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, c. 600 AD

This quote may challenge the way some of you have viewed European history. Here is someone who lived nearly two centuries after the collapse of Roman rule in Western Europe – during a time often dismissed as the “Dark Ages”. And yet, he reports this concept that the world is more than he or anyone of his era knew – that there is a “fourth part of the world… unknown to us”. This idea doesn’t come from Isidore himself; he reports it, matter-of-factly, as something commonly assumed in his day. A belief that there was more to the physical world than what they could see then.   Continue reading “The Fourth Part of the World”

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Transfigured

Feast of the Transfiguration (A): Matthew 17:1-9

You know something’s happening here
but you don’t know what it is
do you, Mr. Jones? – Bob Dylan

Old Mr. Webster could never define
what’s bein’ said between your heart and mine
– from the song “When You Say Nothing At All”
recorded by Alison Krauss & Union Station

 

All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
as from the Lord who is the Spirit. – 2 Corinthians 3:18

Who are we, really? Or, what are we intended to be? Since each one of us has our personal vocation, a part of our response to this will also be personal and unique. However, as human beings, we share a common nature and, in a general sense, a common vocation. What might that be? Continue reading “Transfigured”

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Seeing, Listening and Believing

Second Sunday of Lent (A): Matthew 17:1-9

The Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Lent has traditionally been the account of the Transfiguration. It is fascinating to read commentaries written by Biblical scholars on this Gospel reading. Some scholars from some faith traditions twist themselves in exegetical knots trying to relate a story that no one can take literally (so they say) to the experience of contemporary Christians. If one can’t prove it scientifically, or relate to it experientially, what does one do with it (so they ask)? These same scholars also struggle with the Resurrection of Jesus, for the same reasons. And not only some Biblical scholars. Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times, writes here of a conversation he had with Rev. Timothy Keller over whether he (Kristof) is really a Christian. One of Kristof’s stumbling points was a belief in the Resurrection of Jesus.  He would have similar objections to the account of the Transfiguration, no doubt.

The difficulty here lies, at least in part, in how we think of science and faith. Our culture usually views people of faith as far too credulous, believing in things that cannot be proven – whereas, our culture sees itself as based on science and firmly founded on fact.  Continue reading “Seeing, Listening and Believing”