16 March 2025 - 2nd Sunday of Lent “C”
Gen 15:5...18; Phil 3:17-4:1; Lk 9:28-36
Homily
When Jesus, at important moments in His life, wishes to meet His Father in intense prayer, He withdraws into solitude, often going to the mountain. The event recounted in today's Gospel is one of those important moments. Jesus was more or less halfway through His public life. The early days of His ministry had been marked by great success: the crowds had followed Him with enthusiasm and hope. Gradually these same crowds abandoned Him and the leaders of the people wanted to put Him to death. He must choose lucidly what kind of messiah He is called to be. He must not seek to fulfil the crowds' expectations of Him; He must accept death rather than compromise on His mission. This is what brings Him once again to the mountain to meet His Father in prayer.
This time, however - and this is important - He does not go alone. He took with Him three of His disciples, those with whom He knew He could share His most intimate experience. They were the same ones He took with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of His Passion.
During His prayer, He said His ‘Yes’ to the will of His Father. He fully accepted His mission, He accepted death. It was then, at a time when all doors seemed to be closing, when the future was closing in on Him, when human hopes were crumbling, that He was left with nothing but naked hope in His Father. And His true identity is revealed: ‘This is my beloved son’, proclaims the Father. He is transfigured. His whole humanity is reduced to His Father's desire for Him. And since the three disciples had had the privilege of participating in His prayer, they too are admitted to hear the revelation of His identity as the Son of God.
Here we have some of the fundamental elements of the Christian life and - more particularly for us monks - of the monastic life. It is a life of prayer in solitude, on the mountain, following the example of Christ and with Him. But we don't go alone. Like Jesus, we bring with us our brothers and sisters, those who live with us and celebrate God's praise with us every day, and all those we carry in our hearts.
What was Jesus talking about with His guests, Moses and Elijah? He was talking about His death, which was about to take place in Jerusalem. When God visits us, He also talks about death - the death to ourselves that is necessary for us to allow ourselves to be transformed - transfigured.
Peter doesn't quite understand what's going on and he says: ‘Master, it's a good thing we're here: let's make three tents: one for You, one for Moses and one for Elijah’. What do the Synoptic Evangelists mean when they all say, rather cavalierly, that Peter ‘did not know what he was saying’? I think the meaning is that Peter did not know that it is not up to us to build a dwelling for the Lord. It is He who wants to build Himself a dwelling place in us.
In the event of the Transfiguration, there is a revelation not only about the person of Jesus, but also about the nature of the Christian life. Too often we want to turn faith into a mere moral ideal, to reduce the Gospel to a simple rule of life. In reality, what matters is that we allow ourselves to be transfigured, to be transformed into the image of Christ, in every aspect of our lives. For us, as for Jesus, this will happen in a more radical and significant way when we are faced with moments of crisis in our lives: for example, when we have to accept setbacks when we had hoped for an uninterrupted series of successes. Accepting the cross and suffering, or even humiliation, can also be a moment of transformation for us. Then, perhaps, we will have new eyes, pure eyes that will allow us to see - to see God -- and to see Him in every human being.
Each of the three readings of this Mass speaks of a form of radical transformation. The first reading spoke of Abraham's transformation from a settled peasant to a nomad in search of a promised land, and from a pagan to a worshipper of the true God. As for Paul's letter to the Philippians, it speaks of the transformation from a life of sin to a life of virtue. All these transformations could well be called by the name they have in Christian tradition: they are conversions.
Lent should be for us not just a brief penitential interlude, but a time of authentic and profound conversion, a time of transfiguration. It must be a time when we put down the persona we show to others, the image we have built up of ourselves that we want others to admire, and accept the challenge of simply being, before others, who we are before the living God.
Such a transformation will require long hours of solitary prayer on the mountain. As a step in this process of transformation, let us continue our celebration of the Eucharist, during which we dare to approach God with all our needs, so as to be nourished and comforted by the food and drink of his body and blood, as well as by the nourishment of our fraternity.
Armand VEILLEUX