On our way to the Mountain!

We shall not be moved!

February 28, 2021: 2nd Sunday of Lent

Genesis 22: 1-2, 9a,10-13, 15-18; Romans 8: 31b-34; Mark 9: 2-10

I believe you like a mountain, they say. Have you heard that expression? What it actually means, ever wondered? Like a mountain - mountains, they fascinate, they inspire awe, they challenge, they smile down on us and they stand there unperturbed by anything! It is not their tallness that is their strength, may be that too. It is not their hugeness that is their pride, may be that too. But it is their endurance, their never failing attitude, their fortitude in facing all weather - wind or cold or heat or wet! That is why our faith is a mountain to which we are called...we are well on our way to the Mountain!

The readings present to us a mountainous experience... the first reading we have a mountain that tested Abraham but saved him forever and in the Gospel we have a mountain that shone in splendour to the apostles because of Jesus, but it was not all, there were more things to understand and come to terms with! And St. Paul in the second reading speaks to us of an unfailing mountain, with whom we shall not be moved: if God is for us, who can be against us - the Lord our Mountain!

Let us analyse these mountains and we shall be done for this week...not just this week, but for our whole life which is a journey, a journey of faith, a journey that leads us to the everlasting Mountain, the promised Mountain of the presence of the Lord. We are on our way to that Mountain...and on the way we are given mountains to foretaste that which awaits us and mountains to remind us that we are on our way to the Mountain. 

Before we have a look at those mountains...let us note one important detail: the Word today does not name the mountains for us. Neither does the account from Genesis, nor does the episode from Mark, give us the name of the Mountain - because it is not the mountain that they are concerned about, but the experience of the Mountain. It is not the mountain itself that is holy, but what happens there! It is not the mountain in itself that shines, but the one who invites us there! Now ...let us be on our way to the Mountain. 

The first mountain is the mountain of testing and sacrifice! Our faith journey is more often than not, a uphill journey. There are of course moments that give us a easy ride and other moments when the experience is plane (or plain)! But the moments that are remembered for long are the mountainous moments...moments that try us, as was tried Abraham. But that trial becomes salvific, when we begin to understand the whole picture of our life. Look at Abraham...he was childless and he was given a child and when that child was demanded of him, he could have easily thought he has to protect that child with all his life. But he is our father in faith, because he thought differently. He thought to himself: what was I before the Lord called me, before the Lord named me Abraham from Abram, before the Lord gave me Isaac as my own...it is the Lord's own making and it is the same Lord who is asking! Abraham reaches the peak of the mountain...not the physical peak of that mountain he was climbing, but the spiritual peak of the mountain of faith. He gets ready to give all that he had, to God...and the Mountain saved him, saved him forever, saved his name for generations to come! The Mountain Saves!

The other mountain is the mountain of splendour and glory! Our faith journey at times is obscured by events around us. There are events that seem dark and dreadful - like the pandemic, the economic crisis, the political mockeries, the globalised vandalism that we are experiencing right now in the world. All that we need to do is, climb the mountain with the Lord and there we will see the splendour, there we will see the light, there we will see the Truth that rests with God alone. But the problem is we cannot remain there all our life...we have to come down, but remember always what we saw "up there"...that is the experience that the Lord creates, so that we are given the endurance to keep walking on our way to the Mountain. That is why we proclaimed with energy in the responsorial psalm today: I will walk! I will walk in the presence of the Lord! I will walk all my way to the Mountain! The apostles were given a special experience, because they needed it. No doubt they were having tough times, with no one understanding their master and they themselves not getting clearly what their master was communicating to them. But there were tougher times still to come...they had to be prepared. They were prepared with that experience on the mountain, and that would sustain them for quite some journey. The Mountain Shines!

Then comes the Mountain par excellence - the Lord our God. On my way to heaven I shall not be moved - for the Rock is with me; the Mountain is with me, my stronghold, my fortress and I shall not be moved. When God is with me, what does it matter who is against me! My mountain is my Lord...and it is to this Mountain that I am journeying all my life. As the psalmists says:I did not say to the sons of Jacob, search for me in vain! Yes, the Lord is with us, and there is no need to search for the Lord. The Lord is right beside us as an unmoved Mountain, all that we need to do is decide to be on our way to the Mountain and we shall be there; allow the Mountain to sustain us and we shall not be moved, we shall last, we shall endure, we shall stand and we shall stand firm - because our Lord stands at the right hand of God to plead for us! The Mountain Stands!

The Mountain bids us: walk, the Mountain challenges us: stand, the Mountain encourages us: endure! And we shall be saved, we shall shine and we shall stand, because we are on our way to the Mountain! 

The call to burn till we are consumed...

THE WORD AND THE FEAST 

August 6, 2020: The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord 

Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14;  (2 Peter 1: 16-19); Matthew 17: 1-9

"A lamp shining in a dark place until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" - a wonderful comparison that St. Peter presents to us, though the second reading is only optional for this day's liturgy (being a week day). That phrase would apply to our faith, our life of witness, our trust, our commitment to the Reign of God and every bit of our faith and its expression here and now, all leading us towards that eternal glory that awaits us as children of God(Jn 1:12), co-heirs with Christ(Rom 8:17), people meant for the future glory (Rom 8:18). 

Our Christian life is rich and its richness will be lost if we lose the sense of mystery in understanding it. Mystery is not merely something that is unknown and incomprehensible, but it is something that is beyond all our rational calculations and empirical conditions; yet it is not totally alien from our experience; it is part of our lived experience, an experience we live on a daily basis, an experience that sustains our faith and offers meaning to our life.

The feast of Transfiguration is a symbol, a prefigurement and a surety of the glory that rests within us, as children of God. However, we are warned not to lose our grip on our daily living, on our concrete initiatives towards ushering in the Reign of God in the pretext of dreaming about a future that is glorious and splendid. 

In practical terms, to be people transfigured is to live our lives with our eyes fixed on heaven and our feet planted firm on ground, to never lose the hope that the Lord offers in Himself and to never rest from our efforts to build the Reign of God here on earth. 

Taking up that imagery of the lamp shining in the dark, today's feast is a call to burn until we are totally consumed, totally consumed for the sake of the mission that the Lord entrusts to us, totally consumed living our daily life to the full, totally consumed empowering every person to live their life to their full... totally consumed in the glory that we have treasured within us - the image and likeness of God and totally consumed in the glory we have promised to us - the Reign of God and God's glorious people.

LEARN FROM TRANSFIGURATION - THE DIALOGUE OF DAILY LIVING

THE WORD IN LENT: 2nd Sunday

Transfiguration and the lessons for daily living

March 8, 2020: Genesis 12:1-4; 2 Timothy 1: 8-10; Matthew 17: 1-9

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 off from the cliff, despised him saying they knew him too well, endlessly asked for signs and wonders as if he were some street charlatan, and 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 his 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, a sneak peek 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. What are those lessons?

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... a dialogue with the core of our selves... is an important spiritual exercise that we need to do every day... call it meditation or contemplation or merely prayer or retreat or recollection spiritual exercises or yoga or whatever name you wish. It is being by ourselves that matters - alone with the Alone; alone with the One who alone matters! It is when we are by ourselves that we can really turn to that glory of the Lord which resides within us. As long as we are not by ourselves, the glory lies hidden, it remains latent. 

Understanding the Glory sends us back to our 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 hard and trying, for a moment when difficult things would come by, for a moment which cannot be explained in normal logic, for a moment when we need an extraordinary strength to remain faithful. Let us not lose the miraculous moment in excitement, but draw the necessary strength for a later dry patch! 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 makes sure 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...a dialogue with the source of our being... 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. It would become dichotomous if we experience highs with the Lord and soon return to the lows of life and keep digging there until we return for another high moment in life. No... every intimate moment spent with the Lord has to percolate into our daily life, making it more and more, however little by little, receptive and fertile. Hence the spiritually exciting moments are not so much for themselves, as they are for a sustained experience of the presence of God during the rest of our lives. 

The Glory of the Lord sheds new light on 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. 

Witnessing God so close...a dialogue that invites us to look and behold the mighty Presence... every Eucharist we celebrate is a transfiguration event, and it is an invitation 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. After so many Eucharistic experiences, when we think of a Catholic son or a daughter leave this privileged faith community for another which lacks so many crucial revelations of the Lord, be it for whatever reasons... it is an agonising blunder. After all the eucharistic encounters if we panic at a crisis situation, be it a world level health crisis as the Covid-19 we are facing now or a national socio-political crisis or a personal crisis, what have we really beheld in those miraculous encounters that we have been celebrating? We need to realise that the voice of the Lord 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 Christian life of faith: that is  a dialogue of daily life that we are called to engage in as children of God. Our daily life has to be a fruit of this dialogue and this lenten Sunday challenges us to intensify this dialogue. May the Spirit inspire us ahead.

MARKING TIME

Mercilent 2016 - 2nd Sunday: 21st February

Gen 15: 5-12; Phil 3:17 - 4:1; Lk 9: 28-36

Our Christian life is a Marking Time... we do it diligently and with dedication, but we are not bound to it forever, we look to Marching forward, towards our glorious home.

From our school time drills in March Past, we are taught two types of march: Mark Time March and Forward March. Marking Time is when the marching has already begun, but it has not started moving, it is yet to take its real form moving in unison! 

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

The Transfiguration of the Lord
Dan 7:9-10,13-14; 2 Pet 1:16-19; Mk 9: 2-10

A Reminder of our Inner Selves

At times,  like the disciples felt, we feel like standing and staring at the glory of the Lord; or we don't have time even for that. The transfiguration of the Lord is a reminder of the inner selves that we possess. We do not realise the treasures that we are given with in this earthen vessels (cf. 2 Cor 4:7). We are so taken up with maintaining and adorning and satisfying this earthen containers that we need a reminder like what Jesus gives us today: that our inner selves are way far precious and brilliant, and we need to attend to the innermost yearnings of our being to belong to the Lord and taste the eternal goodness. Our innermost self is the very image and likeness of God.  The invitation is to live a life,  set a standard,  fix on priorities that would make us worthy enough to hear those words: 'this is my beloved son; this is my beloved daughter'!

WORD 2day: 6th August, 2014

The Transfiguration of the Lord : The call to burn till we are consumed!

Dan 7: 9-10, 13-14;  2 Pet 1: 16-19; Mt 17: 1-9

"A lamp shining in a dark place until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" - a wonderful comparison that St. Peter presents to us. It would apply to our faith, our life of witness, our trust, our commitment to the Reign of God and every bit of our faith and its expression here and now, all leading us towards that eternal glory that awaits us as children of God(Jn 1:12), co-heirs with Christ(Rom 8:17), people meant for the future glory (Rom 8:18). 

Our Christian life is rich and its richness will be lost if we lose the sense of mystery in understanding it. Mystery is not merely something that is unknown and incomprehensible, but it is something that is beyond all our rational calculations and empirical conditions; yet it is not totally alien from our experience; it is part of our lived experience, an experience we live on a daily basis, an experience that sustains our faith and offers meaning to our life.

The feast of Transfiguration is a symbol, a prefigurement and a surety of the glory that rests within us, as children of God. However, we are warned not to lose our grip on our daily living, on our concrete initiatives towards ushering in the Reign of God in the pretext of dreaming about a future that is glorious and splendid. 

In practical terms, to be people transfigured is to live our lives with our eyes fixed on heaven and our feet planted firm on ground, to never lose the hope that the Lord offer in Himself and to never rest from our efforts to build the Reign of God here on earth. It is a call to burn until we are totally consumed, totally consumed for the sake of the mission that the Lord entrusts to us, consumed living our daily life to the full, empowering every person to live it to their full. 

LEARNING FROM TRANSFIGURATION

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.

WORD 2day

6^th August, 2013: Transfiguration of the Lord

The disciples see their Lord in his glory and all that they want is to remain in that state of splendour and delight! The call is to climb down, move on and keep walking, taking advantage of the light that the moment has shed! Though Jesus was all the time with them, the disciples needed that experience on the mount to behold his power and glory. Our life of prayer, that is, our relationship with God who shares every moment of our life, is punctuated at times with ‘peak’ experiences, to sustain us in the tedium of the daily journey. Retreats, pilgrimages, charismatic conventions, supernatural experiences and miraculous events – these are very useful and important, but cannot become a daily need! Effective substitutes for these that the Church suggests to each of us, are the Sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation – which when celebrated with the zest and the earnestness that they truly deserve – can become peak experiences on a regular basis.  St. Peter in the today's reading warns us against laxity and invites us to walk in Christ’s light every day and every moment, accepting the apostles’ testimony as a light to our path. On our daily journey, let us observe the glorious presence of the Lord in the ordinariness of the day. Let the gentle beckoning of God keep sounding in our ears all this day – “This is my Son, my Chosen. Listen to him.”