SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT
5 MARCH 2023
God
has a way of breaking through the ordinary moments of our lives in
extraordinary ways. Abram and his wife
Sarah live in Ur, which is in modern day Turkey. One day, Abram hears a mysterious voice
calling him to leave his father’s house and his comfortable surroundings to
travel to a land that God will show him.
He and Sarah respond and settle in the land we now know as the “Holy
Land.” After many years, God will
finally keep his promise and give to the elderly barren couple a son, whom they
name Isaac. God will change his name
from Abram (“My father is exalted”) to Abraham (“Father of a host of
nations”). Because of Abraham’s habit of
faithfulness, he will become the father of many nations. That promise and its fulfillment can be seen
in the third Covenant in our center aisle.
2,000 years
later, God breaks through the ordinary moments of the lives of three men who
have been following Jesus of Nazareth.
On the top of a mountain, the Father reveals the truth about their
teacher. In a dazzling vision, the
Father reveals to Peter, James, and John that Jesus is truly God’s Son, with
whom he is well pleased. Through the presence
of Moses (who mediated the Covenant on Mount Sinai) and Elijah (who revived the
Covenant on that same mountain), these three men realize that Jesus will
fulfill all the messianic expectations of the Scripture. In this private epiphany, an exalted Jesus
stands on a high mountain with his garments glistening. He is flanked by two of the greatest figures
from the past. All is light. Peter wants to build three tents and extend
this moment. All three recognize him as
the Son of God.
Despite
Peter’s plea to remain on that mountain, they follow Jesus and continue their
journey toward Jerusalem. They try to
obey the command to listen to him.
However, they will find that command very difficult when they reach another
mountain. On Mount Calvary, in a public
spectacle, a humiliated Jesus will have his clothes torn from him and
divided. He will be lifted on a
cross. He will be flanked by two common
criminals. All will be darkness.
As we
journey together through Lent, the Scriptures invite us to reflect on the ways
that God has broken through the ordinary moments of our lives in extraordinary
ways. Perhaps that happened at the birth
of a child, or on the day that you were married. Maybe it happened when you had spent time in
prayer and received an unexpected insight or a profound sense of peace. It happened to me on the day I was ordained a
deacon fifty years ago this month. My
family had moved away from our Diocese, and I was at Mount Saint Mary’s
Seminary in Cincinnati. I had gone
through a difficult time of discernment, trying to figure out what the Lord
wanted me to do. Without a physical
connection with this Diocese, I asked to be ordained with my classmates at the
Cathedral in Cincinnati. After the
Archbishop laid hands on me and after being vested by a priest who had been my
mentor, I had an overwhelming sense of joy and peace that lasted almost a week
(and I wasn’t even on drugs). Now I
understand that experience as God breaking through an ordinary moment of my
life in an extraordinary way and confirming my vocation.
It is relatively
easy to recognize Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in these mountaintop
moments. All is light. But like those three disciples, we walk through
difficult times when we are humiliated and stripped of so much of what we have been
clinging to. Life is sometimes very
dark. I’ve certainly had my share of
those in these past fifty years. It is
the same Son of God present in both situations.
Through our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we turn more completely to
the one who promises that the cross and death will not be the end for us. In our Lenten disciplines, the Lord teaches
us that if we die with him, we will rise with him.
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