2nd Sunday of Lent 5 March 2023 Transformation
The apostles had a brief glimpse of the glory that Our Lord
possessed – through His divinity and through His sinless humanity.
Take the sin away, and glory remains. Glory is God's
original state, and would be the state of all creation but for sin and its
deathlike consequences.
Why is it so hard? Why can't we just go to heaven if God
wants it and we want it.
God does indeed want us to go to Heaven, but we must be
prepared first.
We cannot just go to heaven like we go to another town.
It requires a change of heart, the whole life of the soul.
It is much more involved than a mere change of address. We become a new person,
transformed in Christ.
Reaching Heaven then becomes the completion of this
transformation. It is not so much the pleasures of Heaven that we seek as the
complete union with God.
That is our destiny. It should be our lifelong goal, but
sadly so few interpret life in spiritual terms.
Only one problem: we are not there yet!
We long for a better life than we have seen so far – better
both in our own attitudes and behaviour, and as in the rest of the world being
a better place to live.
This is what the Church is reminding us today. This is real
hope, something to hang onto. We will be glad we went though all this, once we
have been through it.
It is easy, under the influence of sin, to reduce our
humanity at the bestial level – like animals only looking for food and
pleasure. We need to be at the angelic level, seeking spiritual riches rather
than earthly.
We can look higher than the animals because we have a
spiritual side that can at least be aware of the infinite. To come to a deeper
knowledge and love of God is what should follow from this.
We enjoy a challenge in some areas of life, such as sport,
puzzles, being the first to do something etc.
This is a challenge for all of us, and we have no choice but
to pursue it to the end.
We can refuse, but that leads to death, even eternal death.
We are more comfortable with what we know, but we must enter
the unknown of the deeper spiritual world.
God wants us to do this, while not forgetting the truth that
has already been revealed to us.
It gets easier as we grasp certain points and grow in virtue.
It becomes easier to be good as we discover it has its own appeal. We keep the
commandments because we want to, not just because we have to.
The Transfiguration was supposed to strengthen the apostles
for the coming crucifixion. It would look like they had lost everything, but
that would not be so.
As it turned out the apostles did not cope with the crucifixion
but they did (by the time of Pentecost) see the whole event in context.
Now it is our time, to see if we can trust God even if
everything looks dark.
We face smaller challenges all our lives, and overall one
big challenge. Can you believe in God and all that our faith promises? It can
be done, but we will face many temptations to abandon ship. And we see that
many have succumbed to those temptations.
We must be strong, and we can be in the strength of the
Lord.
It takes more than a day, but it can be done. We prepare
ourselves for the glory of Heaven, at the same time increasing our chance of
reaching there.
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