Listen to Him

Second Sunday of Lent 2014 A

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.  2 Timothy 1:8B

Lord, it is good that we are here.  Matthew 17:4B

Piety

Our piety is the sum and the substance of the pleasant encounter we have had with God.  Memories make us who we are today.  The Transfiguration of Christ with Peter, James and John looking on reveals to us the power consolation can have in our life.  It did not prevent Peter from being scared and denying Christ.  Consolation draws us on and allows us to have an ever-dawning awareness of the victory already won in Christ.  Desolation might slow down our service of Christ.  Consolation speeds us up.  We are fed by our encounters with Christ.  Christ opens us up to our potential.  Piety allows us to instinctively follow Christ in what we say and what we do.  We are all transfigured in some way by our encounters with Christ.

Study

It is important in our spiritual journey to revisit the moments of joy.  They can be tapped to energize us in dry times.  Hard is not always better.  Love brings us to oneness with the beloved.  The oneness of mind, heart and soul are dearly bought.  Happiness with the beloved is a closeness that has compassion as a mainstay.  We join our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ and we become his suffering in our day and age where Christ in his humanness is in heaven.  But we are the sufferings of his humanness here on earth.  Our deepest joy is our filling up what is missing to his sufferings by being his presence in the needs of the Church in our sufferings.  We suffer in his name and we become his presence in what we do about the needs of our world.

Action

Managing how we minister to our hungers and needs, keeping moderation in all things as much as we can and doing without when others have special needs is how we begin.  Going away from table still hungry joins us to the hungry of our world.  The light of the transfiguration is ours when we smile at friends and look a beggar in the eyes as we give our gift.  How we recognize each other opens the transfiguration to our time and age.  In a world that suffers from individualism, we bring community.  Perhaps once again it will be talked about how those Christians love one another.  When we live out the fullness of our consolations in Christ, we open our world to the light of Christ.