Lenten Project 2014: Sunday #2 - 16th March
We are invited to meditate on one of the marvelous incidents in the life of Jesus and his disciples - the Transfiguration. Peter, James and John were the three privileged ones to be there at this spectacle. But was it only a spectacle...what purpose does it serve within the whole picture of Christ's life and mission? That would be an interesting question to ask, as it comes very close to the end of Jesus' public mission. More interesting fact is that the Church invites us to this reflection during the season of lent...a season when we are intensely thinking of the sufferings of the Lord.
For Jesus, the suffering did not start merely at the moment of the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane! It was there right through...there were moments when the people rejected him, wanted to throw him from the cliff, despised him saying they knew him too well, endlessly asked for signs and wonders as if he were some street charlatan, failed miserably to understand him! Jesus would have been anxious too about how his ministry was really going on! Jesus felt the special call from the One who sent him, to stand up and to voice the call of the Lord to the people! And when he set off to understand that call and realise it in life...he was faced with a myriad of problems. Might be that Jesus himself needed that wonderful assurance from God as a preparation for what lay in store for the coming days...the passion and death that awaited him. Secondly, it could have served as a trailer for the disciples who were in for a great trial within a few days. And the Church wants us to learn exactly these for our own life of faith too.
The Glory of the Lord is always present within us. All that Jesus had to do was to merely go by himself up the mount. The Glory of the Lord is ever present within us and all that we need to do is to make time to be by ourselves. Amidst the din of daily life and trying responsibilities, we may not manage to really be by ourselves. Even our prayer moments could be so filled with thoughts and preoccupations that we fill them so much with words, figures and plans which take away the space that we could share alone with God, who wants to speak to us! Being by ourselves... is an important spiritual exercise that we need to do every day... call it meditation or contemplation or merely prayer or retreat or recollection or whatever. It is when we are by ourselves that we can really turn to that glory of the Lord which resides within us.
Understanding the Glory sends us back to the daily life. Experiencing the glory of the Lord is not to get stuck there, reminds us Jesus. Peter's spontaneous response is usually what we wish in life - when we experience the Lord's presence close to us, may be at a miraculous happening, or a mysterious turn of events, or a joyful coincidence. But in fact it is merely a preparation for a moment that is trying, for a moment when difficult things happen, for a moment which cannot be explained in normal logic, for a moment when we need an extraordinary strength to remain faithful. The transfiguration of Jesus would have been running through Peter's mind all the time during the moments of darkness - the death of Jesus, the crisis of faith and the hidden life in the upper room. That is why he writes in his letter about this event (2 Pet 1: 17-18). Peter wanted to remain in that glory when he saw but Jesus reminds him to return to his daily life! Spending time with God, is not to remain there in that sanctuary, rapt in glory and praise, but it is to return to our daily life and live it more meaningfully; it is to take that experience into the daily life and make meaning out of it.
The Glory of the Lord sheds new light to our days. The experience on the mount could have strengthened Jesus to walk with assurance towards Jerusalem. The experience of the disciples would have given them a new insight into who Jesus was. In a life filled with normal commitments and extraordinary sufferings, the experience of God's glory can clarify and illumine our path, preparing us to live them with newer meaning and fresher strength. St. Paul reminds us of that in the second reading today, asking us to derive strength from the Lord to bear our share of hardships. Every Eucharist we celebrate is a transfiguration event, and it is an invitation to relearn to live our life with increased meaning and commitment. Should we remain the same after a Eucharistic Celebration, either we have not been by ourselves on that mount or we have been blind to that resplendent glory. The voice resounds at every Eucharist: This is my beloved Son,...Listen to Him." If we manage to gaze at the glory of the Lord and listen to the voice of the Lord, our life will be transformed and transfigured.
To turn to the glory that resides within us, to return strengthened to live our life with increased commitment and to relearn the real meaning of the life of faith: that is the project that today's word presents to us. Let us intensify our Lenten Journey and may the Spirit inspire us ahead.
Lent is not merely a moment of some rigorous self control but it is essentially a moment of enhancing our goodness, the goodness that lies deep within us because we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are not called just to return to the dust from which we supposedly came, but we are invited to become one with the eternal living God - the eternal life promised by God, through Christ the Son and Saviour. In being good or doing good, it is possible that we are guided by reasons like - expecting a good return or not to incur the wrath of justice or in return for a good received or in view of presenting a picture of good self to the others! However, the most Christian of all disposition is to be good, because it is my vocation; to do good because it is my essential nature! Being good, merciful and holy because the Lord who has made me, is good merciful and holy - that is the real meaning of being good!