2nd Sunday of Lent 1 March 2026 Sermon

2nd Sunday of Lent 1 March 2026 Consolations 

God expects us to believe and trust Him even when there is not a lot of direct evidence of His closeness.

He expects us to believe and trust Him when the chips are down, when adversity seems to be winning over prosperity.

He wants us to get beyond a faith which rises with good fortune and sinks with ill fortune.

We are tempted to declare there is no God, especially when a number of things go wrong about the same time.

What should we do under adversity? Not condemn God, but rather seek His will, both as understanding it and living it.

We are never tempted beyond our strength, we are told (1 Co 10,13).

It might seem like we are so tempted, but God is ever true to His word, and His arm is not shortened’ (Is 59,1)

Today’s Gospel speaks of the Transfiguration. This event is understood as strengthening the faith of the apostles, so that they would be able to cope with future adversity, especially Good Friday.

Jesus had told them He would rise again, and they should have believed Him by now, but not quite.

The crucifixion looked like a defeat, but it was a victory over sin and death.

We spend too much time doubting when we could be believing. We need lots more faith spread through the Body of Christ. We can encourage each other, and that is one reason why we come here to Mass.

We don’t look for special consolations but we are glad to take them when they come. The Transfiguration is one of those, for the whole Church.

Much of the gospels convey the sense of the tables being turned: those who weep now shall laugh, the last shall be first, the humble shall be exalted, he who loses his life will save it  etc.

We can be happy in this life, by living in this deeper level of trust. We will be able to negotiate any difficulty if we focus on the sameness of God, rather than the changeable tides of present circumstance.

We do  not make light of genuine sufferings but call down the power and goodness of God to make what is wrong right and what is right better still!

Lack of faith leads people to want ‘results’ all the time. If they see no result they will stop praying, and that makes for a weaker aggregate faith throughout the whole Church.

We repeat Easter in particular  to focus on the most important build-up of faith, that of life over death. We drive the point home a little more each time.  Those realities are fixed but our response needs bolstering.

God stays His hand. He could bring events to a head very easily, but He is working to His own time scale. We are glad just to be part of the process.

One of these days it will be Easter every day, in the full glory of being one with God.

Lack of understanding does not mean it is not real. People will say that there cannot be a God given the suffering in the world. We don’t have to understand God's exact purposes  to know He is there.

But if everyone turned to that one God there would be no wars, or similar troubles, because many would come to belief, and there would be no wars started.

God wants us to know him better, such that we are familiar with His ways; and if we do not know everything we know enough as to the course of events.

Such faith as we have, put it in storage, and do not lose it. It will be there when we need it. We reaffirm our stock of faith  every day and build on it.