2nd Sunday of Lent 25 February 2024 The Transfiguration
The Transfiguration was meant to strengthen the apostles for the sufferings they would endure on Good Friday. If they could recall the glory of Christ, which they had seen for themselves, they would not have panicked on seeing the Crucifixion. That was the logical reasoning.
The apostles, however, did not remain constant under pressure, though they did become strong enough at Pentecost a few weeks later.
With the same idea the Transfiguration is offered to us and the whole Church.
We do not always react by the laws of logic. We believe in God, and we believe He can work miracles to rescue us from trouble, but when we are in the heat of battle we can lose that belief.
We have so many miracles we could call upon, yet somehow they lose their power over us.
We need a reference point to which we can always return, and that is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13,8). We need not just the miracles but the One who can work the miracles!
How can we be strong enough that we will never lose what we have gained? Overall victory is assured but we want to win the battles too.
We keep records, at least in our heads; we remember what we have seen, and then we bring it out when needed. This is one reason why we have liturgy, the constant re-enactment of a whole host of miracles, centred on Jesus Christ, what He can do and is doing for us.
Under Josehp the Patriarch the Egyptians had enough to withstand the famine (Gen 41,49). So we put away in storage all our reasons for believing, and we bring them out when our world appears to be falling apart.
We face many ordeals, and we can buckle under the pressure, but we have these reserves to call upon. We not only survive, but flourish.
People in general are not outstanding in faith, so it is easy to operate at that level, and accept that as normal.
But that is not how it is meant by God. He wants us to have a lively active trust in Him, as a matter of course. And He wants to see the whole Church, buzzing with faith and other virtues.
We can always correct past lapses and grow in strength. If we ran away on Good Friday we will not run away next time, or the one after that.
The Transfiguration could be seen as a kind of pivotal miracle, around which all others place themselves. It is a certain reference point which never diminishes.
Think of a time of your life when your faith was at its strongest. Such times are rare and can be a long time apart; but they don’t get any less true with the passing of time.
We might allow the passing of time to erode our beliefs. Memories can fade.
We face some sad experiences along the way. Loved ones die; we have other misfortunes and setbacks. And then there is the world and all its tragedies and troubles.
Who can believe under such pressure, but then again who can fail to believe, given the miracles we have?
In our faith we get used to seeing beyond appearances. We learn to see the complexities of situations and are not easily swayed, especially not to sin.
The main temptation we face is to give up our faith as just too hard, and try to make our own way through life, with maybe some reference to God, but mostly not.
So many do this and it brings all sorts of disorder, and still plenty of fear, which is what they were trying to avoid.
In Christ we have order, peace, certainty – we have all we need to see off various problems and to make progress to eternity.
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